How far back should we look back when sentencing a person for DUI?  The Illinois legislature has answered that question …. since creation.  If a person is 60 and he received a DUI when he was 18 (42 years ago): that was 1958, we had no seatbelts in cars, children routinely rode on the speaker deck (that small ledge behind the backseats and the back window), computers, cellphones, digital calculators, answering machines, cassette tapes had all not been invented yet, should we modify this persons sentencing options?

The ability of judges and prosecutors to weigh these ancient charges has been taken away by the legislature.  Once you have been sentenced in the past for DUI you can NEVER receive a sentence of supervision.

Now, why am I so perplexed by this?  It’s because I think that 42 years ago it is possible that you were a different person, with different values, different goals and a different perspective.  I just believe that considering an offense during a persons youth which occurred a long time ago is counterproductive.  When we do this we don’t allow people to move on.  We tatoo them with a scarlett letter “D.”  I think that if you thought about it for just a moment that you would see that keeping DUI records forever is of very little use.

My suggestion would be that DUI, traffic … etc. records expire after 20 years.  But this suggestion will be hard to implement in a time of “computer records” for everything.  Those records will bring surprizing results for someone who doesn’t remember that the sound track from “South Pacific” was all the rage.

And why would we want the law to be tricky?

Ray Flavin