Tennessee bill would require drunk drivers to support victims’ children

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) – Drunk drivers convicted of vehicular murder in Tennessee must pay baby help below a invoice sitting on the governor’s desk.

However that baby help wouldn’t be for his or her kids. It could go to the kids of their deceased victims.

Tennessee might turn into the primary state to enact a invoice some say is lengthy overdue.

State lawmakers unanimously handed a measure final week to require convicted drunk drivers to pay baby help to the surviving kids of oldsters they killed whereas behind the wheel.

They might be required to pay the kid help till the kid reaches 18 years previous and has graduated highschool.

State Senator Mike Bell, R-Riceville, sponsored the invoice within the Tennessee Senate.

“Now I do know this course of can already happen via the civil courts, however this enables it to happen via the legal courts,” mentioned Bell.

The invoice was initially named after a Missouri baby whose dad and mom had been killed by a drunk driver in 2021.

The Tennessee model can also be named after the kids of a Hamilton County police officer who was killed by a drunk driver in 2019.

Moms Towards Drunk Driving launched a press release in help of the invoice.

“Too typically, offenders are capable of transfer on with their lives even after killing somebody, whereas victims and survivors are reminded day-after-day of their loss,” the assertion mentioned.

Melinda Campbell misplaced her husband, Michael, to a drunk driver in 2015.

She now sits on the Tennessee Advisory Council of Moms Towards Drunk Driving and helps the invoice as a result of she understands what households of the victims undergo.

When her husband died, she was left to boost two sons alone.

“I had calculated that our family earnings dropped about 70 % and that’s large as a result of the payments didn’t go away,” mentioned Campbell.

Bell says it is going to be as much as a choose to contemplate all elements when figuring out how a lot a drunk driver must pay, together with the monetary wants and assets of every of the sufferer’s surviving kids, their surviving mum or dad, and their way of life.

The invoice now sits on Gov. Invoice Lee’s desk.

Based on the Tennessee Division of Security and Homeland Safety, 272 folks died in alcohol-related crashes in Tennessee in 2021, together with 45 folks in Shelby County.

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