In theory, in the USA, public opinion is not supposed to be a factor recognized in the sentencing guidelines. But it is anyway.
And yes, just like in the USA Judge set the sentence, but the Prosecution will request a sentence.
A media circus like this one will certainly effect the trial and sentencing. It’s not supposed to- but it will. Here or there.
I just saw this, and he makes a point. So I am going to stop posting here, You all have fun now, hear?
It’s not. You can be also be charged with Causing Death by careless or inconsiderate driving if the CPS thinks that is appropriate, or if an investigation finds it’s purely an accident, no charges may be brought at all. Obviously, the CPS doesn’t find that to be the case in this instance.
There is also, I note, Causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs, etc
Huh, I was assured earlier by GreenWyvern that no such existed and the charge laid included Drink Driving offenses. Strange.
I certainly didn’t say that the charge doesn’t exist.
I said that the guidelines are that it’s not necessary to charge that offence in addition to causing death by dangerous driving. That was the point we were discussing.
I think we can assume alcohol wasn’t involved now, at least not over the legal level.
Ok, I just realized we misunderstood each other in the last exchange. I was saying that in Canada she would have been charged with driving over the legal limit as well as dangerous driving causing death. I was not saying they’d be charged with two different vehicular homicide crimes. That’s why I said “the lesser charge would have been included”.
I think we’re still misunderstanding each other.
In the UK that doesn’t seem to be the case. There would be no separate charge of driving while intoxicated, because that is included as an aggravating factor in the charge of causing death by dangerous driving, and it affects sentencing.
For the record, I think it’s unlikely she was drunk, but there may be other aggravating factors, such as texting on a mobile phone, or taking medication that causes drowsiness. It’s significant that she was charged with the more serious offence of ‘causing death by dangerous driving’, rather than ‘causing death by careless driving’.
There doesn’t have to be a crime at all for a person to die in an auto accident. A moose can run in front of a car, and kill the driver. A tree can fall on a vehicle. I once saw a large traffic sign blown down by the wind and hit a car (thankfully, no one was injured. But they certainly could have been.)
Yes, I think both that the death was tragic, and also that the actual crime was modest. I don’t believe there is any contradiction between those two. I don’t think it minimizes the horror of a boy being killed to observe that the woman who killed him was confused, not malicious.
If there wasn’t liability, then no charge would have been laid.
The fact that the more serious charge of ‘causing death by dangerous driving’ has been laid suggests that there is more to it than mere absentmindedness.
You still seem to be imagining that you know all the facts of the case. You don’t.
The point at issue is what degree of culpability is involved in that confusion. Determining that depends upon the evidence being heard and challenged in the proper court.
And yet none of these unavoidable things happened. An avoidable death happened because a driver wasn’t paying sufficient attention to handling a lethal weapon.
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The first statement is correct. Imagine the same collision, but with Harry Dunn on the wrong side of the road and Sacoolas driving correctly and safely. There would have been no arrest and no charges.
No one, not even the Dunns, is suggesting that she was “malicious”. If she had not been in a collision but was just spotted on the wrong side of the road by a passing cop, she would have probably have suffered nothing but a telling off and a reminder that we do things differently over here.
Well, yes. I know you flounced off earlier, but I have to call this out. Are you saying nobody can ever get a fair trial when there’s a media circus? Should we have let OJ go since there was no way to get an impartial jury?
I don’t understand. Why does it matter that she used to have a job at CIA? How does that make anything worse?
Saying that “she used to have a job at the CIA” distorts the situation. It makes it sound like she was a secretary there, or something.
She almost certainly is (not was) a senior CIA agent, and more senior than her husband. (Mail article) Also, even though she had only been in the UK for 3 weeks on this particular visit, she had previously worked in the UK for two years up to 2017, presumably as a CIA agent. But on this occasion, she was not officially notified to the UK government as a CIA agent. Her status was as 'a spouse with no official role’ – but ‘senior Whitehall figures have confirmed they knew of her CIA history’.
The reason she was allowed to leave the country so easily was that she was a CIA agent, and the reason the US won’t allow her to be extradited is that she’s a CIA agent. Perhaps she has a license to kill.
I’m pretty sure she didn’t have a license to kill random teenagers. And if that’s true, I bet her boss is really angry that she blew her role like that.
If she lived in the UK for two years, the argument that she was “new to driving in the UK and probably confused” is shot to hell.
Oh, good point. I missed that. Yeah, WTF?