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DA: Drunk suburban driver with suspended license hit two kids in Dorchester crosswalk

An Abington man was ordered to attend Narcotics Anonymous or AA meetings twice a week after prosecutors said he was drunk when he hit a toddler and a child in a stroller at Talbot and Dorchester avenues around 6 p.m. on Thursday, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office - which says the guy switched seats with his passenger before police arrived.

Judge James Coffey also set bail for Michael Duca, 28, at $2,000, but declined to revoke his bail on three pending charges of operating under suspension out of Quincy and Plymouth County, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. The two children were taken to the hospital and are expected to survive, the DA's office says, adding:

Duca was seen driving the vehicle at a high rate of speed moments before the crash, but he switched seats with his passenger – a 28-year-old Plymouth woman who owned the vehicle – before police arrived.

Duca's speech was slurred and he was unable to maintain a train of thought as he was interviewed by police, even nodding off at one point during the questioning. During a battery of field sobriety tests, he was able to recite the alphabet but unable to walk a straight line or stand on one foot.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

Wow, AA meetings? I'm sure that will teach him a lesson. Certainly there's no reason to send him to prison for a minor infraction like this. After all, he only had three priors.

(Apparently? This article is kind of confusing.)

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If he was so drunk that he was nodding off after the hit, what was that women thinking letting him drive her car with her in it?

Was she drunk as well?

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"Nodding off" is a term used to describe a semi-sleeping condition due to narcotics, not alcohol. People "nod off" while they remain standing up sometimes.

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This guy clearly puts the public in danger. Apparently he paid his $2000 bail and walked, without so much as a urine test or a day program. Judge James Coffey: WTF?

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He endangers people with a car. That doesn't count. We can't go around keeping people from driving, you know! Not like he was carrying a gun around or anything dangerous like that.

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People are ambivalent about impaired driving. The medical marijuana law just passed by a good margin specifically prohibits any per se standard as evidence of drugged driving for somone who has a permit for medical marijuana. So while some states are setting a legal limit of 0.08 of THC, there is no limit in Mass... not 0.08 or 8 or 800. Rather the case will have to be made via driving behaviour .... like it used to be for alcohol before the per se standard was adopted. And before the per se drunk driving law, behaviour based allegations of drunk driving were hard to prove.

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O.08 of THC? Where are you getting that? The molecular weight of THC is rather different from alcohol, and it isn't a liquid fraction. Some states are setting standards - not science based ones, mind you - but they are in nanograms per milliliter.

Oh, and the best science we have (probably not yet enough) consistently shows that pot doesn't impair driving ability in the same way that alcohol does, or in a manner that can be predicted based on blood levels.

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I'm sorry, are you saying that you think the defendant who is presumed innocent (in other words has not been found guilty of this crime or his three open cases) should have been severely punished before being found guilty?

Because, well... the USA doesn't work that way.

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That's right. In this country, everybody is always offered bail for any offense. Every time. It's in the Constitution.

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I suggested he might be monitored, to reinforce the seriousness of the charges and maybe keep him from harming new victims while his cases are pending.

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