Drunk on love
Nassau County in New York has recently stepped up its efforts to deter drunken driving by providing news media with the names, hometowns, and mugshots of its DWI arrestees. The idea is that if drunk people know getting arrested means they’ll be in the paper on Monday, then maybe that — if nothing else — will discourage them from getting behind the wheel.
The project is controversial, but that’s not what I wanted to tell you about. What I wanted to tell you about is one of the people they arrested over Memorial Day Weekend, a 17-year-old girl named Gianna Vigliotti. According to Newsday (via Gothamist), Gianna’s blood-alcohol level was 0.15 percent, almost twice the legal limit of 0.08. (Actually, since she’s underage, her legal limit is 0.00.) But she swears she wasn’t drinking. Her explanation? “I didn’t drink! I was kissing a boy who was drunk!”
Mmhmm. Are you really gonna try to sell that one to a judge? Teenagers are hilarious. Did you ever make up an extraordinary lie to avoid trouble, and then stick to it no matter what? I know I did.
So that’s funny already, and then there’s this quote from her family’s lawyer: “To now have (the arrest) publicized is not only embarrassing, but demeaning as well.”
Really, egghead? It’s embarrassing? Yeah: that’s kind of the point. “Your Honor, this highly publicized effort to embarrass drunken drivers has resulted in my client, a drunken driver, being embarrassed!”
(Also: “Embarrassing” and “demeaning” are almost synonymous anyway, but we’ll let that pass.)
(Also: Maybe Nassau County shouldn’t mess with this girl. With a name like Gianna Vigliotti, she is almost certainly the daughter of someone with Mob ties.)
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
No way! Demeaning is way worse. For some people, it’s embarrassing to be asked to do anything in front of people, even receive an award, but it’s certainly not demeaning.
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:33 am
Or someone who owns their own salad dressing company.
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:55 am
One of my sisters lives in the (fairly) small town of Clarion, PA. The local newspaper there regularly lists the names (and maybe even addresses?) of every person arrested for everything from passing bad checks to drunk & disorderly, etc. All of this is public information — no one has a right to “privacy” after having been arrested.
But like many other things that were deemed “public” information as long as “the public” had to travel to the State Capital during business hours & search through filing cabinets in the basement, I guess we are supposed to believe there should be a different standard just because it is now actually EASY to get such information on just about anyone. Isn’t that what “open government” is supposed to be about?
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
She’s 17? For some reason I thought it was illegal to publicize the name of juveniles who commit crimes. Guess I was wrong.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Maybe she’s an alcoholic dementor and she sucked the alcohol out of her boyfriend?
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
It’s only illegal in Canada under the Young Offenders Act. The States can go crazy.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I think they just withold the names if the person is a victim of a sex crime, and even then, I think that’s just a policy the AP has. They are free to name them, they just choose not to out of respect for the person and their family.
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
If I were her, I’d just be happy that I didn’t get this treatment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G8_BbERk8o
June 4th, 2008 at 12:05 am
I think drunk drivers need to drive around with flashing lights & big signs on their car saying “WARNING!! DRUNK DRIVER ON BOARD” & see one of two things; (a) the line of lawyers to fight it, & (b) how many idiots have it & keep driving drunk! I have very little sympathy for drunk drivers, after having two of my friends killed by a kid who was out partying with his friends. Just because they’re under 21 doesn’t mean they don’t need a little humbling in the press for acting stupid. If doing it means that there’s one less drunk on the road, I’m all for it!!
June 4th, 2008 at 9:48 am
I’m just guessing here, but having your picture in the paper for having a DWI would only hurt someone’s professional life (work mostly) because think of it, if you got a DWI and your friends saw it they probably would not care one bit. I know if that happened to me my idiot friends would probably think it is cool.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:52 am
“With a name like Gianna Vigliotti, she is almost certainly the daughter of someone with Mob ties.” What a cheap shot at someone with an Italian name. If her name were Sadie Goldberg, would you say “She almost certainly has a father who’s a money-grubbing loan shark?” If it were Shayana Washington would you say “She almost certainly has a brother in prison for selling crack?” Come on, this is not worthy.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Good point. I should have said: “With a name like Gianna Vigliotti, and the Long Island address, she is almost certainly the daughter of someone with Mob ties.”
June 4th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
the last 4 comments about her name and address are the dumbest things i’ve even seen.
what’s absolutely pathetic the media’s attempt to harass Gianna. She is a minor, she made a mistake, and she is paying the consequences. Obviously if she was drunk and nervous she would say something ridiculous like that on the spot, any 17 year old who had never gotten in trouble before would. This is not grounds for the media to target and publicly humiliate her.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:32 am
I don’t understand how apparently truthfully reporting an arrest can be said to “target and publicly humiliate” anyone. That is the kind of argument made by a celebrity’s publicist (and laughed at by most readers of newspapers & viewers of TV news).
I really think the difference in how some people feel about this has to do with how widespread a story like this can be transmitted these days. Like that guy in Australia a few weeks ago who put a seatbelt around his case of beer but not around his child, these types of stories can end up all over the world today. But does THAT FACT really mean that there should be different rules of journalism? Like I said above (#3) many small town newspapers have been reporting things like this every week for decades. Exactly WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE about a Long Island newspaper doing it?
June 5th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I live in Vegas now but I’m originally an Italian from N.Y. I actually lived on the same block as the Genovese mob family. I also was friends with a young Gambino with a family of mob ties. So, it’s definitely not out of the question with that name that Eric is correct- lol.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
First of all, being of Italian descent and someone who’s family was always on the wrong side of the mob, I still thought the joke was funny. Then again, maybe I have a sense of humor.
Second, many cultures have the attitude of saving face above all else. Doing something wrong isn’t wrong unless you get caught. She was young, she was stupid, and she will have learned a very strong lesson. Do you think she’ll ever drive drunk again? And if she doesn’t, and if she never kills anyone or permanently injures them, isn’t that the point. Driving drunk is a choice that is made. It isn’t anything she (or anyone else for that matter) is forced to do. She’s just getting more attention paid because she made the stupid comment that no one in their right mind would believe. And if this method saves lives - isn’t that worth it? If it deters more teenagers from drinking and driving and killing themselves or others, won’t her little embarrassment that will be over in a week have served its purpose? As someone who does not want to be killed by a drunk driver, I applaud the system.
June 8th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
“The local newspaper [in Clarion, PA] regularly lists the names (and maybe even addresses?) of every person arrested for everything from passing bad checks to drunk & disorderly, etc. All of this is public information — no one has a right to ‘privacy’ after having been arrested.”
How bizarre and disturbing. I’d agree that you don’t have a right to privacy after being _convicted_ of a crime. But simply being arrested doesn’t prove you’re guilty of the crime you’ve been arrested for. Does this newspaper print retractions and apologies if the arrested individuals are later found not guilty?
June 9th, 2008 at 9:59 am
What would the apology say, Kyralessa? “We apologize for saying Joe Blow got arrested, even though he, ya know, DID get arrested”?