One of the major flaws of our system of protecting the public was spotlighted this week when an illegal immigrant from Mexico was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for the hit-and-run death of a young nurse. The accident occurred last April on West Sixth Street in Lawrence.
When the man who fled the scene was located, his blood alcohol content was measured at twice the legal limit. That is bad enough, but perhaps even worse is that he had been found guilty of driving while intoxicated earlier and, for some reason, was back on the streets.
Initial penalties for drunken driving are not nearly severe enough to lessen the chances of repetition. In this case, the man was not in the country legally and should have been deported after his first driving offense. The immigrant's lawyer said he felt the man was sorry and that he is "not an ogre."
That means nothing to the family and friends of the young nurse. Anyone, citizen or not, caught driving drunk, should have his or her chances of getting back onto the streets minimized. If the individual in a second such offense kills somebody, hit-and-run no less, the penalties should be at least the same as those assessed in this case.
Time and again we hear and read where legal people tiptoe in dealing with people convicted of operating motor vehicles while they are in impaired states. Even sadder is that so many such people eventually get back behind the wheel under the influence of intoxicating substances. Too often there is no serious reaction until they have killed or crippled some innocent people.
The local case involving the nurse should cause revisions in the law to impose harsher penalties for first-time drunken driving offenses to cut down on the prospects of repeat offenses with tragic results. If the errant driver is an illegal immigrant, he or she should be deported posthaste.
Local law enforcers had a chance to keep Adan Cruz from killing Jodie Hatzenbihler in Lawrence on April 9. It's too bad that state laws or the people who enforce them didn't prevent this tragedy.
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