December 17, 2007

Did Rob Briley Get Off Easy?

According to news reports, state Rep. Rob Briley will only serve 10 days in jail, and pay a $350 fine, for his DUI conviction - and related felony charges including evading arrest after his flight from cops across two counties in a high-speed chase, have been dropped. Briley will also be on probation for two years and lose his driver's license for one year.

Did he get off easy? You be the judge - the Tennessee Code specifies the following punishments for a first-time DUI conviction, and I've noted what we know about Briley's punishment in relation to that provision of the code:

Also, the judge can order the DUI convict to install a vehicle Ignition Interlock Device at their own expense, and drug and alcohol treatment may be required at the judge's discretion.

We don't know if the judge ordered either of those things. (Later: Yes we do on the treatment program - see update at bottom of story.)

What we do know is Briley's jail time and fine are at the low end of what was possible - despite the fact that he was not just arrested for driving under the influence but was arrested after a lengthy chase across two counties, after crashing his car into an occupied vehicle hard enough to embed his front bumper in the back of the other car and leave it there. And upon his arrest Briley verbally assaulted police officers and then vandalized the police car.

What we don't know is whether Briley's punishment is consistent with that received by average run-of-the-mill, non-powerful, non-political DUI suspects across Tennessee. I don't know if there is a good database of stats on the levels of punishment ultimately given to first-time DUI offenders who plead guilty - if you know of one, please let me know.

Meanwhile, I seem to recall that, when Briley was first arrested, Tennessee Democratic Party officials and leading Democrats in the state took the position that they wouldn't say much about his case because it was pending. Okay. Now he's a DUI convict.

Tennessee Democrat Party Chairman Gray Sasser was quoted in a WRKN interview several weeks ago saying, "If Briley is convicted, the legislative leaders may decide to ask him to resign or remove him from some of his committee positions."

And, as Knoxville News-Sentinel writer Tom Humphrey reported Sept. 16, while the Tennessee Republican Party called for Briley to resign soon after his arrest, Tennessee Democrat Party Chairman Gray Sasser declined to do the same, noting that Briley had not been convicted of anything and "at this point in time, what's most important is that Rep. Briley gets healthy and deals with these deeply troublesome and personal issues."

Humphrey reported that House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh declined to take disciplinary action against his House Judiciary Chairman, saying only that the court system would resolve the matter of guilt or innocence and until that happens - and until he talked with Briley after his treatment program - no discipline decisions should be made.

Well, the court system has spoken. Briley is a DUI convict. He's on probation for two years, with a felony evading arrest charge still hanging over his head if he violates the terms of his probation. (Which are .. exactly what, we don't know.) * See Update below.

With Briley now convicted and sentenced for DUI - a crime so serious and deadly that the state spends millions of dollars on law enforcement to stop it and on public-service advertising to prevent it - I now await eagerly to hear Sasser and Naifeh talk about whether Briley should resign from the legislature or if it is okay for an alcohol-addict with a DUI conviction to help make laws, including DUI laws, for the state of Tennessee.

For good reason, I'm not holding my breath. The culture of corruption gripping the Tennessee Democratic Party is aided and abetted by the Democrat leadership's culture of silence when it comes to the crime and corruption of a growing number of its legislative members.

Update: The AP report says the terms of Briley's probation are that he must not "break any substantial laws" and must complete a substance abuse program.

Update: In the Tuesday edition of the City Paper, Briley's lawyer asserts that the state "really had no choice" but to grant Briley pretrial diversion on the evading-arrest felony charge. Is that true?

Apparently not. The law says that the prosecution and defense "may" agree to pretrial diversion, but there appears to be no requirement that the prosecution "shall" offer such a deal or that the defendant agree to it in cases involving evading arrest. I'd love to see stats on how many people charged with evading arrest after lengthy high-speed chases are offered pretrial diversion. I'm betting it's not 100 percent. The Wilson County District Attorney's office could have looked at the seriousness of Briley's crime - a crime which threatened the lives of countless Tennessee motorists - and chosen not to let Briley off the hook so easily.