Where Jaywalking meets Vehicular Homicide

[LSN80]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43878939/

A Georgia woman faces up to 36 months in prison and will be sentenced today in Georgia when she was found guilty of that. Raquel Nelson(30), failed to use a cross-walk 3/10 of a mile away from where she and her three kids were crossing. On April 10, 2010, she and her three young children were traveling across the median of a highway near their home, with Nelson carrying grocery bags. Jerry Guy was the driver of a van that came barrelling through the intersection, hitting Nelson, her younger daughter, and killing her 4 year old son AJ. The catch? Guy had been drinking earlier, was on narcotic pain medication, and blind in one eye. He went to jail for 6 months. She faces more.

Raquel Nelson was convicted July 12th of second degree vehicular homicide, wreckless conduct, and failure to use a crosswalk. Jerry Guy plead guilty to Hit and Run driving and subsequently had all other charges dropped, including vehicular homicide. Not withstanding this is the fact that Guy previously had been convicted of hit and run driving twice in one day in February 1997. He was released from jail 6 months after being sentenced and faces 5 years of probation for this incident. He previously spent over a year in jail for that incident. Regarding her impending sentencing, and the leniancy shown to Guy, Nelson said the following:

“I’ve had to forgive that portion of it. However, I think to come after me so much harder than they did him, it’s a slap in the face. This will never end for me.’’

It would be hard for me to digest as well. Was Nelson wreckless while walking her children through the intersection? Sure. But as a single mother, college student, and full-time worker with 3 children, walking another with 3 kids and groceries in tow would have made for quite the sojourn. Further, it was a trip she had made many times without incident. It would have been hard to foresee a half-blind drunk driver on narcotics. It's even harder to see the idea of her getting more jail time then he does.

Im unsure how the vehicular homicide charge stuck. Wreckless endangerment in the death of a minor? Sure. But she wasn't driving the van that killed her son, Jerry Guy was. There are intracacies of this story i won't pretend to understand. What I do know is that any sentencing of this woman will just take her away from her other two children, and worsen her pain. Regarding the situation, her neighbor Michael Johnson said this:

“It is her fault and it is his fault, but at the same time she’s suffered such a great loss, so I just don’t see what putting her in prison is going to do.’’

I agree. Ive talked before about the difference of someone making a mistake, and doing something in premeditation. Nelson made a mistake, albeit a large one, in walking through an intersection with her 3 children at 9pm in the virtual dark of night. Guy made the choice to drink, take narcotics, and drive being blind in one eye. The idea of Nelson receiving more time then Guy is one beyond my comprehension of the idea of justice. But what say you?

Regarding the idea of the crimes charged/convicted with, were Guy and Nelson judged fairly? Why or why not?

Of what purpose would it serve to put Nelson in prison at this point?

Should our policies/laws be more stringent regarding driving for past hit and run offenders?

Feel free to use the questions as a springboard, or discuss this in any other way you'ld like. Lete talk about this. Ill update this later today when her sentencing comes in.

 

[Smooth Sexual Chocolate]

Don't pedestrians have the right of way, whether jaywalking or not? I pretty positive I'm not mistaken.

This story is messed up on so many different levels that I can't even waste my time and energy getting angry at it, it one of those things that just makes me want to smoke and forget how fucked up of a world we live in.

I can only hope that Obama steps up and pardons her, because this is an injustice and an embarrassment to the United States.

 

[Mustang Sally]

One principle that is common in both Nature and the law is that whenever trends tip too far in one direction, it's always followed by a tendency to over-balance things in the other direction to compensate.

I work for a newspaper and have been watching court cases reported over a long period of time. When it comes to driver vs pedestrian cases, results have favored the pedestrians in almost every instance. Whether the pedestrian is walking, jogging, bicycling .....or, heaven forbid, a child...... it's almost always ruled the driver of the vehicle is at fault. Forget the circumstances, forget the sometimes seeming contradictions of the ruling; the judge or jury almost always rules in favor of the person hit by the car.

Perhaps things have been so over-balanced in that direction that we're now seeing a reverse trend: almost a backlash. If it's so, we're going to see some out-of-kilter verdicts going in the other direction.

In the case cited above, I doubt the judge was comparing Mr. Guys' (the driver) sentence to Ms Nelsons' (the pedestrian). Guy received the punishment the judge felt was appropriate and I doubt his sentence was compared to hers; the cases were surely handled separately.

I'm not saying Ms Nelson's sentence wasn't unduly harsh, but she put her children at an unacceptable level of risk...... honestly, I think it's time the drivers weren't held solely responsible for every accident, when the pedestrian was partially (or wholly) to blame.

Personally, I don't drive, so I suppose it's easy for me to say all this, but I've seen too many wacky court decisions that punish drivers who often weren't the cause of the accident.

I don't know if putting Ms Nelson in prison is appropriate.....and I certainly don't understand how she can be convicted of vehicular manslaughter since she wasn't driving. However, if she hadn't put her family at risk, her 4-year-old son would not have died, and that had to have been considered by the court in deciding her punishment.

 

[UnBEARaBULLfan]

Is jaywalking even a inforced crime anymore? You see it all the time. I've seen it happen right in front of cops with no actions being taken.

To me she is being punished way to harshly for a mistake, and he is getting off with a slap on the wrist for vehicular homocide. He has proven to make poor choices with his 2 previous convictions for hit and run, and this last one of getting behind the wheel why being under the influence of alcohol and drugs with already impared vision has cost a mother her child and time with the rest of her children.

I honestly wish someone could step in and show the court, judge, jury whoever they needed to that they in the wrong on this one.