Maximum? Am I reading this wrong? The singer Brandy had an accident and caused someone’s death and they may prosecute her for vehicular manslaughter. Okay, so far, But if she is found guilty:
Here is a synopsis of what happened:
Assuming this is found to all be true, does a year seem like adequate punishment? I feels grossly inadequate to me?
A year of incarceration seems excessive for what is essentially an accident. It’s a shame someone was killed, but at the risk of sounding callous, shit happens. Putting this woman in jail for a year does no good for anyone. It could have happened to any one of us, and if you’re going to claim you’ve never once driven faster than you should have, I’m going to call you a liar. Note very carefully that she was not accused of exceeding the speed limit, she was accused of driving faster than was prudent or safe for the road conditions; if it’s raining and the speed limit is 55, you are possibly in violation, even if you’re doing 54. Something very nearly every single one of us who drives has done.
What do you want? It isn’t as if she intended to kill anyone.
I don’t want to defend Brandy, but let’s face it, car accidents happen all of the time. And if there hadn’t been a death involved here, there would just be a few tickets and an insurance hassle.
The law generally punishes people more for intentional homicide than for just negligence, and rightly so. Worse crimes deserve worse punishments. Just because someone died is no reason to prosecute for first degree murder.
This is a pretty well established legal principle, and I’m not going to criticize it.
Twenty-five to life seems excessive for an accident, but a year seems pretty lenient. One to five seems reasonable, depending on the circumstances. VMS while under the influence should be seven. While on a cell phone should be more.
What did she do that was so criminally wrong?
She had an accident. She wasn’t drinking. She simply made a mistake. It’s certainly tragic that someone died, but she didn’t intend to kill the person, and she didn’t engage in such reckless behavior that she should have known someone might die as a result.
Without really knowing the details, I can’t say I’m shocked or outraged. Car accidents happen, and people die, and it’s not always the case that someone needs to do a decade of hard time because they screwed up while driving.
We’ve all been there, and breathed a sigh of relief that our messup didn’t amount to anything.
The only reason that this is even news is the fact that some sort of celebrity was involved.
I’ve driven over the speed limit once in my life. I was 18, it was only the only car on the road, and it was a country road. I got the thing up to 70, for about 10 seconds.
Call me a liar if you want, but I have no sympathy for those that speed.
I’m sure she’s already devastated, but I see no intentional action on her behalf. I’m sure she’ll get the fine and no jail time. Poor thing…what a sad thing to have to carry around for the rest of your life.
Yeah, me too, but that’s not the point right now. The point is, magpie, that in a free society accidents are punished less harshly than negligence or maliciousness. That’s a good thing, magpie. It accounts for the role of intent in judging human beings, which is a nice innovation, even after you add up all the lying.
I did not say “exceeded the speed limit,” I said “driven faster than you should have.” There is a difference, as I clearly explained.
Read the post you cited. He’s not talking about people who break the speed limit, he’s talking (and the OP is talking) about somebody driving faster than is safe. Have you ever:
Driven the speed limit in the rain?
At night?
While it was snowing?
Past construction crews?
Past a pulled-over vehicle or police car?
When it was very windy?
If your answer to any of the above is “yes,” then you may well have driven faster than was safe, which is what he’s talking about.
Liar.
if you drive any amount of time, you have sped. Even if it was going 26 in school zone. You are not that good of a driver, nobody is. so unless the amount of times you have a driven a car can be counted on one hand, you have sped.
It would be more than what Rebecca Gayheart and Mathew Broderick got:
Like someone up there said, its tragic but shit happens, ruining two lives instead of one to punish someone for something that could happen to anyone is not right.
I would be interested to hear what the OP considers a just sentence for this crime. Then multiply that by all the cases of vehicular manslaughter in the country, and increase our taxes to build more prisons to “punish” these heinous offenders. Is that what you would like to see happen? Or is it a matter of out-of-sight, out-of-mind; once they are sentenced and your need for righteous retribution is satisfied, they just disappear into our overcrowded penal system, without any unintended consequences? Not very thoughtful, I must say.
Yes, accidents happen. And I can see a case where no jail time at all would be warranted. The two things that stood out to me were:
Her excessive speed, which based on the action of the car she hit seems like it could have been substantial.
I find it troubling that one year is the maximum. As tdn pointed, ther are sometimes contributing factors, like cell phones. That seems to increase the culpability in my mind. Now if that then kicks it into a new charge, that may be fine.
Yes, I got that. Poor wording on my part.
Of course. And I always reduced my speed when doing so.
I understand that accidents happen. But people do stupid things that increase the likelyhood of accidents, I’m sure you’ll agree. The penalty for causing death by such stupidity should, IMHO, not be boxed into a mere year.
To me, the penalty for this type of behavior should not have a maximum of one year. And Brandy’s particular penalty should be tied to the degree her speed was excessive. As I stated, I can easily imagine incidents like these that zero time is warranted. But something like that Gayheart incident that DigitalC related would merit more than one year.
As to your other point, while the number of criminals created and the burden they place on our penal system is a valid concern, the degree to which we look to penalties reducing the crimes before they happen is also a consideration. I’d say one that is at least as important.
Your logic doesn’t follow. Just because some people – even most people – have, does not mean that everyone has.
Intent doesn’t matter with respect to lawsuits. Anyway, although they are termed “accidents” as if no human factors are involved, there are plenty of folks out there driving without regard to anyone else’ safety. Negligent homicide shows an intent not to drive safely, and probably should be punished pretty severely in order (hopefully) to dissuade others from doing the same.
I don’t want to get killed because some fucking moron feels compelled to watch a movie in their car, or talk on their cell-phone in an unsafe manner, etc. It can be done safely, but in practice it doesn’t seem to.