Delivering a message

Drinking and driving: Just don’t do it

Restrictions on liberty have been a fundamental part of criminal justice since humans first devised systems to impose punishments for violations of community norms. Prison sentences are a necessity, but it’s only in cases involving stuff — burglaries, thefts, destruction of property — that a period of years behind bars can ever come close to feeling like justice.

When actual harm is done to someone, it’s almost impossible for any sentence to salve the wounds, both physical and emotional, that result from criminal behaviors. The justice system here in the United States is flawed and routinely frustrating, but it’s better than most. It sets lofty goals of fairness and protection of individual rights. It takes into account the impact of crimes on victims and others.

What no prison sentence or justice system can do is bring life back to someone killed as a result of criminal behavior.

We’re thinking of the case brought in Washington County Circuit Court against Jonathan Alexander Rountree of Dallas.

Early in the evening of Jan. 26, a man and a woman were in a GMC Sierra headed south on Interstate 49 near the Bobby Hopper Tunnel. Suddenly, a car traveling more than 100 mph slammed into the rear of the Sierra, which overturned and threw its occupants out. Passenger Jorgia Cole, 18, of Edgerton, Kan., didn’t survive. The driver suffered injuries that sent him to a Tulsa hospital.

The speeding driver was Rountree, who was 22 at the time. According to police, he was intoxicated. In a state where 0.8 blood alcohol content is considered driving drunk, tests on Rountree showed alcohol levels of .21 at the scene, .23 at a local hospital and .17 at the Washington County jail three hours after the wreck. Inside his car, police found a beer can, a whiskey bottle and a THC vape pen.

In late November, Rountree pleaded guilty to negligent homicide while intoxicated and battery in the second degree. Those are both felonies. Washington County Circuit Judge Joanna Taylor sentenced Rountree to 30 years at the Arkansas Department of Correction with 12 years suspended.

Chief Deputy Prosecutor Denis Dean said it perhaps better than we ever could.

“This case is a tragedy in that so many lives will be forever changed for the senseless and selfish actions of one 22-year-old man,” said Denis Dean, chief deputy prosecutor. “In a time when so many options exist for an individual to get alternative transportation after drinking, this sentence should serve as a reminder to the community that drunk drivers will be punished severely for their decision to get behind the wheel intoxicated.”

No prison sentence can possibly match the horrendous damage done by a drunk driver’s actions. All our justice system can do is seek the right balance, as both punishment and, as Dean cited, a message to all others who face future decisions about drinking and driving.

The only right decision must be made before an alcohol is consumed: Getting behind the steering wheel must be eliminated as an option. It must be an inviolable commitment, for the driver’s future and the future of others out there who may be harmed if the driver fails to live up to his commitment.

Let’s hope the message Dean conveyed in this case will fall on ears that needed to hear it.