Originally Posted by
dynodonn
Looking the video one has to ask, has there been this much of a "dust up" over the death of a pedestrian in cases that involved a motor vehicle?
Yes. The
Nestande case here in Austin had a huge "dust up" about it, mostly because Nestande worked in the office of a state representative and was well connected, and so it was assumed that there was a cover-up of some sort. (That said, I don't see any evidence of that -- she just had the benefit of having a good lawyer from what I saw.)
Of course, she was almost certainly drunk at the time, but she did the "flee, sober up, lawyer up and turn yourself in later, say you thought you hit a deer" thing. Back to the SF case, such prosecutions for somebody who wasn't drunk, wasn't drag racing or fleeing from the police? That's I've never heard of. Even if the person can be proven to have done something like run a red light, I've never heard of such a prosecution for it, at least not here.