This beautiful child is Calli Murray, 2, who became the latest fatality of a driver who was texting while driving. The driver was Sonoma State University freshman Kaitlyn Dunaway who was texting while driving in California. She slammed her Honda into Calli and her mother Ling Murray, 40, who suffered a broken leg, a shattered pelvis and broken arm. However, Dunaway, 18, will only be charged with a misdemeanor offense.
The mother spent a month in the hospital and months more in rehabilitation.
These are tough cases in terms of sentencing. It was a stupid and lethal act but not an intentional crime (other than the intent to text). As a result of the misdemeanor, Dunaway faces no more than a year in jail.
This may be the appropriate charge but usually the family has the better option of a civil lawsuit for wrongful death. In this case, however, Dunaway is a legal adult and thus her parents would presumably not be subject to the lawsuit. The result is a college student with presumably little in terms of assets. It is still, however, worth the lawsuit. You cannot claim bankruptcy to judicially awarded damages and the result is that Dunaway could spend much of her life having to pay for this act. Even if only a token garnishment, it is a constant reminder of the terrible cost imposed on the family.
Before this misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge, Dunaway had a 2009 conviction for riding in part of a vehicle that is not designed to carry passengers. She was also accused of traveling at an excessive speed.
I would be interested in how our readers view the treatment of these type of accidents as a misdemeanor. Would justice be truly served by jailing this teenager for more than a year?
Source: SF Gate
I like what culheath said very much.
This type of criminal behavior seems to be getting as common as driving while intoxicated, and is probably at least as dangerous. I disagree with those who say a jail or prison sentence would serve no one. If enough of these dangerous criminals go to prison for a long time, maybe the rest will wake up. It seems to have discouraged some drunks from driving. Or have we forgotten one of the principal aims of the criminal justice system is general deterrence?
The State of California have been running a series of ads about texting while driving recently. One:
The most blatant legal oxymoron of all-time:
“Misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter”
______
When I was teaching my son to drive, I told him a vehicle he was operating was a 2-ton lethal weapon and that he had a moral obligation to others to drive carefully.
AY
only if you have one of those coffee makers that plug into the cigarette lighter. gotta have a cuppa joe after that sixpack
What Frank & TheMoarYouKnow said! Plus, she should have to serve the full prison term, however short, all her assets should be taken, however few, and her license to drive revoked for the longest period allowed in California.
This is sad on many levels. The loss of life because of blatant stupidity is disturbing. This behavior has become the norm. Assuming we have all noticed people running red lights or switching lanes at the last minute without using signals and on a phone. Or teenagers walking though a mall while texting and never even looking up to see where they are going.
Everybody makes mistakes but these statistics are on the rise.
Make an example and set a precedent.
1st offense that involves death = break both thumbs and suspended license.
2nd offense that involves death and/or crippling injuries = cut off the thumbs, license revoked.
There will be no third time’s a charm.
Too harsh, what it if it was your child?
Primigenius,
“Um… Actually, damages for accidents arising through a driver’s negligence ARE dischargeable in Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Claims for death or personal injury from the operation of a motor vehicle by an intoxicated person are Schedule E unsecured priority claims. Just happened to be taking a break from preparing a Chap. 7 for a client who’s bankrupting a $12K judgment for damages to a truck he hit with his car. We will avoid the judicial lien, and it will be discharged.”
The family’s attorney can file an adversary complaint objecting to the discharge of damages.
jail would serve no one. I’d say part of her “punishment” should be to become a poster child for billboards and TV ads on why not to text while driving.
Why is this a problem…..It is like California after all… That is just as much their right to Text and Drive as it is my God Given Right to Drink and drive in Texas…..
I’ll text you more after I finish my beer….its getting warm between my legs…I would put in on the dash but others might see it and want it too…..
The above was poking fun at stupidity….But is it ok, to play words with friends and drive, with a beer? Just asking…
What “part” of the vehicle was she riding in in 2009? The trunk, the glove compartment? I’d like to know more about that.
Maybe the was riding retro in a rumble seat, although that must still be legal.
Garnish her wages seems to be the only, if too mild, a sanction. Here’s the thing: She’ll still be texting behind the wheel! They can’t stop.
Well, by all means … let’s be civilized about all this.
The 2 year old is dead forever. The 2 year old’s mother will be maimed and in mourning for her dead child for the rest of her life. Due to her injuries, I suspect she couldn’t attend her child’s funeral. What a misdemeanor.
I suppose it could have been worse. There could have been two or three toddlers in the car … all dead … misdemeanor multiplied.
Poor Dunaway, deaf and dumb is she, thus ignorant of the dangers of texting while driving? Lack of intent?
Civilized bullshit.
OMG…
Given her prior history, and the nature of this accident, I think that perhaps the best remedy for her incurable negligence (and she will always be like this, people who display this pattern of behavior are so self-absorbed that nothing that happens external to them ever leads to change) is simply to take away her privilege to drive a motor vehicle for the rest of her life.
Throwing her in prison, satisfying as it might be, isn’t going to cut it.
Neither is taking what little assets she’s got.
What Frank and raff said.
This young girl will be paying for this horrible result the rest of her life. And she should be paying a higher price, but I don’t know how making her sentence longer or stiffer will solve the underlying problem of distracted drivers. It is not something that can be easily deterred.
Um… Actually, damages for accidents arising through a driver’s negligence ARE dischargeable in Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Claims for death or personal injury from the operation of a motor vehicle by an intoxicated person are Schedule E unsecured priority claims. Just happened to be taking a break from preparing a Chap. 7 for a client who’s bankrupting a $12K judgment for damages to a truck he hit with his car. We will avoid the judicial lien, and it will be discharged.
I think Frank’s analysis is spot-on. The girl’s behavior here was an instance of negligence — there is a reasonable expectation that people who are granted the use of public roadways exercise reasonable caution given the common knowledge that motor vehicles are potentially dangerous.
I can picture the driver as DC is full of such people and their peers cluelessly walking across streets or on and off public transportation. If the freshman’s insurance company picks up the tab, she’ll hopefully pay for many years to come through higher premiums and the mother is certainly entitled to compensation for her own lost productivity and bills her insurance will not cover. None of this will bring back the child and it is difficult to know if this unfortunately typically clueless young person will take a lesson from this.
Like driving while intoxicated, once you make the decision to drive ‘impaired’ you have decided to put people at unnecessary risk. I don’t know what the sentence is for charges like reckless homicide but this is not an accident, it should be more than a misdemeanor.
If you took a gun into the street and started randomly firing into houses it would not be an accident if you hit someone, it was a foreseeable outcome of the actions you took.