A sad story, but I'm not all that troubled
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Sacramento, CA
The 62-year-old man, who had been battling an alcohol and drug addiction for years, was awaiting his fate after pleading guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol in New Milford last year.
But cocaine and vodka weren’t the only things destroying his body — Lamprecht also was fighting follicular lymphoma, for which he took Truxima — a drug his doctor warned the court could cause immunosuppression.
“The only concern is this — I’m a little scared about the COVID thing,” Lamprecht told Superior Court Judge Christopher Pelosi at his sentencing on Sept. 15, according to court transcripts from the case.
… Lamprecht added, “I’m immunocompromised, you know. I’m 62 years old. It’s just a little scary.” The judge replied, “I agree, but my hands are tied”
Connecticut has a mandatory minimum 4-month sentence for a second DUI, so off Mr. Lam[precht went to his doom. This seems harsh to some:
…. Kenyatta Muzzanni, the director of organizing for the Katal Center for Equity, Health and Justice, which has been advocating throughout the pandemic for the state to release more people from prison and jail to reduce the spread of the virus, the failure starts at the system’s front end, before Lamprecht was even incarcerated.
“What happened should not have happened to that man,” Muzzanni said. “It shows that we take more consideration into putting people in cages and calling that rehabilitation rather than actually helping people. A person lost their life for a DUI. That’s unacceptable.”
It’s that last sentence that bothers me. Literally, just last night I spoke to a young man whose mother was killed by a drunk driver when he was 6-months old, “and I was raised by my father”. So no, I’m not calling for the death penalty for drunk drivers — God knows, I’d never had made it past my 18th birthday — but, if someone has to die, better that they lose their lives in the crashes they cause, than the far more common deaths of innocents they slaughter.
