Aristotle believed that drunkeness never excuses crime, but actually increases guilty, because the drunken lawbreaker has willingly deprived himself of the ability to reason that alone can distinguish right from wrong, and separates men from beasts.
A different view is held by creepy Maryland State Delegate Joseph F. Vallaria, Jr. (D-Prince George's and Calvert). Vallario thinks drunks should always get another chance to kill and injure, just so long as their DUI defense attorney (that would be Joe the Creep) gets his "fee."
According to the Washington Post, all but three states and the District now have some form of interlock law for drunk drivers. Virginia for example mandates their use for two-time offenders who want to keep driving.
But Maryland law merely says they “may” be used. 2009 legislation that would have changed "may" to "must" in many cases once again died in a House committee chaired by Vallario, well-known among the trial bar, insurance companies, and surviving relatives of citizens killed by drunk drivers and the drunk drivers best friend in the Statehouse.
"If you take the test and blow a 1.5 blood-alcohol level and you want an interlock, you can get it," Vallario told the Washington Post. Vallario said mandating their use could cause problems for people convicted of drunken driving who "don't have a car because we can't compel them to buy a car and put one of these in it."
The few safe driving DUI enforcement measures that have struggled through Annapolis in the last few years have survived largely because failure to enact would have jeopardized federal highway funds.
Chairman Joe’s M.O., according to the Washington Post is to threaten Judiciary Committee members privately to kill nearly every bill coming their way. Mothers Against Drunk Drivers consistently reported that for years Vallario vowed to kill any legislation raising the blood alcohol limit or keeping violently aggressive drivers off the streets. The Daily Record legal newspaper in Baltimore reported one year that Vallario claimed he was protecting driver’s rights, on the theory that making it illegal for a driver to refuse to take an alcohol breath test would constitute ” forced self-incrimination." In the 2009 Annapolis session Vallario also killed a bill calling for a Maryland reckless driving law that would have made it easier to prosecute violently reckless drivers. The bill called for drivers who were responsible for causing a motor vehicle fatality because they exhibited negligence leading to "substantial risk" of safety to be charged with a misdemeanor crime. The penalty would be up to three years in prison. Currently, at least thirty states have laws that allow reckless driving charges even if the driver did not exhibit "gross negligence."
In January 2009 Mary Gray, the mother of a 20-year-old man who died after being hit by off-duty Prince George’s County police officer Mario Chavez, testified in Annapolis in support of the reckless driving bill. Chavez had admitted to drinking on the night before the deadly wreak, but was never charged in her son's death. The Prince George’s County state’s attorney found that there was insufficient evidence to charge Chavez, who had been a Hispanic diversity program recruit to the force, with vehicular manslaughter, an offense that requires proof that the driver was “grossly” negligent. Instead, Chavez was merely issued a traffic ticket for the deadly December 2007 accident. The bill that could have saved lives like those of Mary Gray's son died in the Judiciary Committee for five years in a row due to Vallario’s despicable money-grubbing machinations.