I just don’t understand drinking and driving

Your statement suggests someone arising from bed one morning
and declaring: " I shall make a mistake today! "

What's wrong with that?

I must make at least one mistake every day.

Usually it's something mundane, like forgetting to buy toothpaste at the supermarket.

How do we pronounce his name? Is it like Tom or like thread?

I don’t feel Thom should or will walk away from this with a slap on the wrist, he will do time.

The question is how much.

We will just have to wait and see. Playing guessing games about it, as some have been doing, is meaningless. The sentences can vary considerably, particularly if he accepts a plea deal.

Very true, it will be all over town when it's handed down.

He 's not pretending to be a lawyer.





David

now we wait to see how close I am to being right. While I might be wildly wrong here I tend to be very close to right a lot of the time.

Again showing how poorly you understand our "justice" system, there is no handing down of punishment in a plea deal, which is the way these cases are ended 90% of the time.

A sentence is not imposed upon someone who agrees to it when they dont have to agree. There is no verdict in a plea deal, only the announcement of a deal to short circuit the process, so the court never passes judgment

EDIT: a more civilized society than ours would demand that the facts of the case be largely determined before the citizen is punished, but in the land of the cowboy what ever the state can bully the citizen into is considered a just result by the court almost always.

A directed verdict is not made by a jury. It is a verdict ordered by the court after the evidence has been presented and the court finds it insufficient for a jury to return a verdict for the side with the Burden of Proof. A court may enter a directed verdict before the jury renders its verdict. If the court allows the jury to make a verdict but then disagrees with the jury's evaluation of the evidence, the court can decide the case by issuing an order. For example, under rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, a court can grant a judgment of acquittal to a defendant.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/verdict

The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provide for two main types of plea agreements. An 11(c)(1)(B) agreement does not bind the court; the prosecutor's recommendation is merely advisory, and the defendant cannot withdraw his plea if the court decides to impose a sentence other than what was stipulated in the agreement. An 11(c)(1)(C) agreement, however, binds the court once the court accepts the agreement. When such an agreement is proposed, the court can reject it if it disagrees with the proposed sentence, in which case the defendant has an opportunity to withdraw his plea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargain

The person enters a guilty plea. They are then convicted on the basis of that admission of guilt, and they are sentenced on the charges they have plead guilty to. The sentencing by the judge is the passing of judgment--it is the judge who imposes the sentence

Go to Europe and see if the state can get away with that.....the answer is no. More civilized people demand an accounting of the facts before citizens are punished, they do not allow the state to bully or terrorize the citizens into admissions of guilt with are then used as the sole basis for punishing them

You always have to make things all about you.

So, it's not about the sentence Thom will receive, and whether it will be fair and reasonable, it's about whether you will be proved right.

Regardless of what happens, even if the case is adjourned because a piece of Russian spacecraft hit the courthouse, rest assured, Hawkeye will claim he was right.