8-time DUI offender says sentence is too harsh

Let's throw a pity party for this guy. Someone arrested eight times for drunken driving belongs behind bars, not behind the wheel.

From a story by Carl Hessler Jr. in The Mercury:

NORRISTOWN – A man with eight drunken driving convictions and who was characterized by a judge as "an absolute danger to society" claims the judge imposed too harsh of a sentence against him.

Raymond Leight III, through his lawyer, argued in court papers that the 2½ to five year prison sentence imposed against him was “excessive and contrary to the law” and did not "contemplate the cunning, baffling and insanity of the disease of alcoholism."

"It essentially punishes (Leight) for having a disease like yellow fever or small pox. There is no cure for alcoholism. The only treatment method to end one's destructive drinking is that for today and only today I will not have a drink of alcohol," defense lawyer Wentworth D. Vedder wrote in court papers on behalf of Leight.

Vedder, asking a judge to reconsider Leight's punishment, also argued that Leight did not cause any personal injury to pedestrians or other drivers, and did not cause any property damage during his most recent DUI incident.

8-time DUI offender says sentence is too harsh (pottsmerc.com)