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Speaker 1: Where's the line on drug driving? On Friday, a twenty

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Speaker 1: year old Napier man found it two years behind bars

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Speaker 1: after a cannabis fuel crash that killed one of his

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Speaker 1: friends and left another in a wheelchair. The judge says,

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Speaker 1: if you kill someone when driving under the influence of

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Speaker 1: drugs or alcohol, you can expect to go to jail,

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Speaker 1: even with no previous convictions. Steve Cullen is a criminal

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Speaker 1: lawyer joining us this morning. Morning Steve, Good morning, Ryan.

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Speaker 1: I would have thought that was obvious.

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Speaker 2: It certainly is, given that the starting points in the

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Speaker 2: vicinity of four and a half to five years imprisonment,

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Speaker 2: there's an inevitability that anybody caught in that type of

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Speaker 2: situation will find themselves behind bars.

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Speaker 1: He gets discounts twenty percent for guilty plea, fifteen percent

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Speaker 1: for youth, five percent for restorative justice, ten percent for rehab,

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Speaker 1: so that gets him down to two point twenty five.

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Speaker 1: So he was actually very close to potentially getting home d.

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Speaker 2: That's right, he went if the effect of those in

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Speaker 2: he began at the starting point of four and a

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Speaker 2: half years, so fifty percent discount still takes you to

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Speaker 2: two point twenty five. He's got to be down to

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Speaker 2: two years or less to even be eligible to consideration attention.

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Speaker 2: If you have a breath level over the static tree

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Speaker 2: prosecutable level, or a blood level over that level, or

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Speaker 2: elements of drugs in your system, such as you were

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Speaker 2: in capable of proper control and somebody dies, you're going

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Speaker 2: to go to jail.

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Speaker 1: A judge is becoming harsher or is it just always

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Speaker 1: the why? It's pain?

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Speaker 2: It's always the way it's been. I've had two or

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Speaker 2: three of these, and one relatively recently, and I remember

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Speaker 2: the judge. They're looking dumbfounded when the submission was made

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Speaker 2: by ironically the prosecution that the starting point was lower.

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Speaker 2: The judge referred to an authority where a man even

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Speaker 2: killed his own child driving under the influence of drink

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Speaker 2: or drugs and wound up facing a term of imprisonment.

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Speaker 2: It's simply the way that the law has developed, because

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Speaker 2: if people are being killed due to drug drivers or

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Speaker 2: drink drivers being on the road, then a harsh penalty

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Speaker 2: has to be a post to send the message to everybody.

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Speaker 2: And it's one that Judge Collins has been trying to

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Speaker 2: vocalize that so that people understand the risks they're undertaking.

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Speaker 1: It's a good message to get through and who cares

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Speaker 1: if there's no previous conviction, someone's died.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, how many people are you're allowed to kill before

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Speaker 2: you should face go into prison? It's absurd.

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Speaker 1: Steve appreciate time. Steve Cullen, criminal lawyer.

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Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live

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