I think what Mr. Wolff means is that better plea bargains need to be leveraged, and that the best way to leverage them is by being prepared for a DUI trial. If a prosecutor is not willing to give a good deal “just because,” then it is the DUI lawyer’s job to give the prosecutor something to think about. If the prosecutor thinks that they might lose the case, then the danger of litigation goes up. If the prosecutor knows that he is in for a fight if he doesn’t reduce the charge to something reasonable, then he is more likely to think twice about engaging the lawyer. It is for the clients of lawyers who fail to prepare for trials that good deals rarely come.

A DUI reduced to a lesser charge is better than a DUI, right? So no matter how well prepared for trial a lawyer might be, no matter how much skill the DUI lawyer possesses, and no matter how much charisma he possesses, a good lawyer knows that the best looking and most well prepared case is a case that on any given day he could lose. Therefore, in advising the client in the client’s best interest, taking a reduced charge may be sound advice.

Your characterization of DUI being treated nearly on par with child molestation sounds melodramatic, but is, unfortunately realistic at the same time. The MADD propaganda machine certainly makes analogies that are out of line at times, but the argument that a dead victim of an impaired driver can never recover, while at least a victim of child molestation is still alive has a certain logic to it. The difference is one of intent. Most people can agree that molesting a child is evil. I also think that most people would agree that drunk driving is an evil, but rarely if ever is the intent of the impaired driver evil in quite the same way.

Child molestation in most states requires lifetime registration, and in most cases it probably should to protect other innocent children. Each year we inch closer to having lifetime probation, or lifetime AA meetings, or lifetime ignition interlock devices for people convicted of DUI.

I appreciate your comments and would like to hear more of your views.

A lesser offense is agood outcome? How? in most states a DUI is traeated almost rhe same a child molestation case…and don’t think MADD hasn’t made the comparison. Even pleading to a lesser charge, when it is on record as having been redused from a DUI..is almost as bad as having a DUI Guilty finding, wuth or without a plea? Besides….how are “preparing a case for trial” and “negotiation to a lesser offense” related, anyway? Negotiating to a lesser offense; ie; plea bargaining is a way to get OUT of a trial..not preparing for one.