Regarding the Jan. 9 article "Drunk driver gets 7½ years for killing kids": A sentence this short is a parody of justice and an insult to the Ogami family and every victim of those who have driven under the influence of alcohol.
The court's approach to this case was totally misguided from the start. It convicted the culprit, Futoshi Imabayashi, on a lesser charge because it decided that Imabayashi's condition "wasn't severe enough to impair his ability to drive properly."
Really?! Was not Imabayashi's ramming a car from behind and killing three children proof enough that his ability to drive had been severely impaired? Perhaps the presiding judge could explain to the Ogami family how many cars Imabayashi needed to hit and how many more kids needed to die before his condition could be deemed "severe enough." This is insane!
This case should not have been about whether Imabayashi had been drinking excessively or not. It should have been about the fact that Imabayashi killed three children as a result of willfully driving under the influence of alcohol.
Drunken driving is not a road traffic law violation -- it is a criminal act. The charge should have been murder, and the sentence 25 years!
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