K'Tesh

Michael Vu was hit and killed from behind by a coward who ran. Now the coward has been convicted and sentenced to the max sentence in Oregon - 18 Months. The killer will have 3 years of probation, and 5 years of a suspended license.

Justice? Or a slap in the face to Michael Vu's family.

When will the punishment fit the crime?

Family irate over 18-month sentence in deadly hit-and-run

dynodonn 

It'll eventually will, as traveling by bicycle becomes more and more recognized as a legit means of transportation in the US public's mindset.

squirtdad

my question is: is the penalty any different from what the driver would have gotten for killing another motorist or pedestrian?

I don't have stats but in reading the local papers it seems that the penalties on drivers are in general in the lower side of what one would I would expect or hope for.

And those who get convicted with sentincing almost alway involved hit and run, no drivers license, dui or history of dui, or reckless driving (speeding etc) before the accident.

On the other hand, locall a guy was sentenced for 3 years for hitting a cyclist, who was singificantly injured. His case was hit and run, no licenxe, past history of dui, and actively trying to hide evidence.

SactoDoug

That is terrible. You would think that felony hit and run would have a stiffer penalty.

In California, the maximum penalty is four years in jail, fine, plus restitution if leaving the scene of the accident caused more damages. I'm not sure if four years is jail is sufficient but I'm no legal expert.

Mos6502

I don't see a problem here. He's going to prison for over a year. Further prisons are overcrowded and prison time won't make this guy a better driver.

Should the penalty be more harsh? I think so. But not with more prison time. Mandatory driver education course? PSA about safe driving? Community service, say giving talks at schools about the person you killed? Paying damages to the family? Those would all be fitting.

If you want stupidly long, tax wasting prison sentences, then maybe this will cheer you up: https://www.kptv.com/story/18099984/d

I wish we could look at justice as something that rights wrongs, rather than simple punishment.

dynodonn 

Your post shows how acceptable killing people with an auto has become in the US. Letting motorists off with a short sentence, and some short term fixes, half heart financial restitution, hasn't been sending much of a deterrence signal. If a longer prison sentences won't deter motorists from driving poorly, at least it will keep the more dangerous ones off the roadway for a much longer time.

Digital_Cowboy

That my friend is a very good question. The companion to that question, is why does riding a bike devalue a person's life? Another question, if a person hits another person (be they a cyclist, pedestrian or in another car) and turn themselves in is it still a hit and run? Or I guess the better way to phrase that question is how much time has to pass between hitting someone and turning oneself in for it not to be a hit and run?

Digital_Cowboy

At what point would longer jail sentences be warranted?

Digital_Cowboy

Agreed, the current system obviously isn't working. If it was people would know/understand that there a consequences to their actions.

Right now, as most of us know, it seems like all a motorist has to do is to say that they "didn't see us" and the most that they'll get is a slap on the wrist.

Why does it take drugs and/or alcohol, or something as outrageous such as what happened out in LA with that "good" doctor and his history of endangering cyclists lives for it to be taken seriously?

Of course in his case his own words to both the 911 operator as well as the officer on the scene helped to convict him.

Mos6502

I'm sorry at what point did I indicate that killing people was "acceptable"? Ok, send the guy to prison for ten years. What use is that? What do we get out of it? Oh wow he'll feel really sorry! Yeah awesome, oh and society has to pay for him to feel sorry? GRAND. What a brilliant, and useful form of justice. Not to mention exceptionally practical since prisons are overcrowded. Maybe we can let out some murderers and ******* to make sure there's room for this guy to stay there that long.

What is wrong with thinking that maybe he ought to be required to do something FOR society? Prison isn't the end all, be all solution for every crime.

Digital_Cowboy

Again, I ask you at what point do you think a more lengthy stay in the "pen" is warranted?

And there is a simple solution to the cost of incarceration. Require ALL inmates to work in a prison run industry. Be it doing the prison (and other business) laundry, making license plates, making furniture. Require all prisons to grow their own food and require the inmates to work the prison farm.

That serves two purposes, it defrays the cost of their stay in the "pen," AND it gives them a usable skill for when they are released. Isn't that a win-win situation?

Mos6502

When somebody has repeatedly committed a crime that endangers society and seems incapable of, or unwanting to reform then I think they deserve to be locked up for as long as necessary to keep them out of society. Sending somebody to prison for a year or two I think is plenty punishment under most other circumstances.

No it's not a win-win solution. Because it would also give us incentive to lock up more people for the sake of extracting free slave labor out of them.

But perhaps this tangent is a little bit too political for this particular forum.

contango 

I think the key issue with jail time is that it focusses on only one aspect of the justice system.

As I see it the justice system needs to do three things. It needs to punish the offender, it needs to rehabilitate the offender as far as possible, and it needs to protect society from the offender for as long as is necessary.

Punishing the offender can be done in many ways. Depriving them of their freedom is just one way - in some cases it may be more appropriate to impose a financial or convenience penalty. A heavy fine (the kind of fine that will make a significant impact in the offender's budget for some time) may be a more appropriate punishment than locking them up. Likewise taking away their driving license for an extended period may represent a better punishment.

Rehabilitating the offender can potentially be done in many ways, in or out of prison. In the context of drivers who kill other road users the detail of the event is crucial. With the best will in the world, accidents happen. The driver who has been involved in a genuine accident, even an at-fault accident, may not need to be rehabilitated in the same way as a driver who has been involved in multiple accidents and potentially needs to be retrained or taken off the road for a time (and possibly permanently).

Protecting society from the offender is where things can get thorny. The driver who is habitually dangerous may need to be taken off the roads, and if they continue to drive despite having their license revoked they must be prevented from doing so in the future. A driver who commits a genuine error, even if the result of that error is tragedy, is not necessarily someone from whom society needs to be protected.

Of course the worst part of the justice system is that in cases involving severe bodily injury or death there is no punishment that can restore the victim to how they were prior to the incident.

Mos6502

Eloquently stated and reasoned.

Poguemahone

I find myself agreeing with Mos on this one. There's little societal purpose to jailing these guys forever or even for years. What I would vastly prefer in these case is large fines, very long suspended sentences (about thirty years in this case) and a lifetime revocation of driving privelige. Drive again, the sentence gets unsuspended and you are jailed pending any appeal. Plus the vehicle you are driving is impounded unless the owner swears out grand theft charges against you.

You probably get more jail time for stealing a car than killing someone with one. But sticking every offender in jail is costly and largely pointless, unless you want to feed the prison industrial complex a few more public dollars. The Damoclitian sword of a long jail sentence hanging over your head if you drive again would stop all but the most sociopathic drivers from ever driving again.

Good luck with anything like this in our current society however.

Digital_Cowboy

And in many of these cases that we've read about here show that the motorist has had an extensive history of such behavior. Take the case of that "good" doctor out in LA. He had a well documented case of "brake checking" cyclists because he apparently didn't like cyclists driving on "his" road through "his" neighborhood. And he was given if I remember correctly a rather extensive jail sentence.

As dynodonn said your responses seems to mirror those of most people who for whatever reason see the loss of life on America's roads as an acceptable part of driving. That is really sad.

Really? This isn't the days of the "old south" with chain gangs. Prison is suppose to PUNISH people as well as REFORM people. Part of reforming people involves providing them with the training to teach them the skills so that once they are released from prison they do NOT have to return to a life of crime.

How are they being punished if they're allowed to sleep all day, or work out, or watch TV all day? NOT being a criminal myself I can't say what their mindset is. But I would suspect that for a career criminal that they see it as a "risk" of doing "business," and/or see it as a "vacation." So how are they being punished and/or reformed?

Working in a prison run industry would punish them, AND it would teach them skills to become a productive member of society. And as the word working would or should imply they would be paid for their work. Just not cash in their hand as after all they are in prison and it would likely be stolen by other inmates.

It would be put into their commissary account, their room and board, their meals, their electric/cable, etc. would be deducted from their paycheck.

As it is now when someone goes to prison they're pretty much given a free ride as it were (as I understand it as again I am not a criminal myself). They get free room and board, free meals, free medical, free education (if they elect to avail themselves of that option). Whereas if they're working in a prison run industry then they're earning a living, they're paying into Social Security, they're learning skills that they can use when they're released and become productive members of society.

How is that a "bad" thing?

Poguemahone

Digital, I'm kind of thinking not only have you never been to prison, you don't know anyone who has. I am pretty certain no one views it as a "vacation". They are nasty and overcrowded places. The privately run ones are often more brutal than the publicly run ones, which aren't exactly tea and cake all the time. And education programs in the prisons have been cut to the bone, the better to punish offenders. Some of whom are in for unrealistically long times for what are minor offences. See the "War on Drugs," for example.

And yes, I've had more than one family member (cousins) serve time, as well as several friends. I've also worked with a dog training program in one of our state pens. It got out that one of the trainers was training dogs, and it became a political football-- she was a murderer who needed to be "punished." So she can't train dogs anymore. Too bad, she was good at it. One of my dogs came from this program-- he was kicked out by a guard who didn't like the trainer, so he wanted to punish her. Good move. Next stop for the dog would have been the needle. Yeah, people really want to go to prison.

Mos6502

Yes, but this particular man is not the "good" doctor.

Well if you and he are going to make such heavy accusations, you might want to back them up with one wit of reason. It's not reasonable at all for you to claim that because I'd rather see one form of punishment take the place of another, that I'm saying it's acceptable for people kill with cars. I didn't even say that he should pay damages and do service in place of prison time he is serving - but in addition to what he serving, so the very claim is completely absurd.

I'm just saying that I think he owes society something more useful than feeling sorry and bored, and I'm not talking about license plates.

Digital_Cowboy

Agreed.

Again, agreed. And as part of rehabilitation should involve re-education, i.e. providing them with the education to learn new skills so that when (if) they're ultimately released that they are now productive members of society.

Again I agree. But in imposing a financial penalty while it needs to be steep we don't want it to be so steep that their only "choice" is to continue a life of crime. How many drivers do you have over there in England who continue to drive after having their license revoked? Sadly, over here we have way too many people who do not see not having a license as being an impediment to being able to drive/continue to drive. If they want to drive they're going to drive whether they have a license or not.

Agreed, up to a point. But in the event of an at fault "accident." The driver should be held to higher standard vs. a driver who while swerving to avoid hitting a "salmon" and ends up hitting another cyclist who is riding in a legal manner. And in that case the "salmon" cyclist is probably the one who needs to be charged, as if they'd been riding legally themselves then the car wouldn't have had to swerve to avoid them.

Late last night I was coming home from having had dinner with several friends from the group that I've started riding with last year. At one point I saw a "dark mass" against the dark of the night. It was so far ahead of me that my Stella 150l nor my four Cateye Uno's could light it up. And I wasn't 100% certain that I was seeing something way down the road in front of me. I eventually catch up to them and discover that it is a semi-ninja (they had reflectors on the back of the bike as well as on the pedals but were wearing dark colored clothing). At about the time that I caught up to him there is a car traveling in the correct direction for the lane that they were in. I stepped up my speed so that I could pass him before the car had to swerve into my lane, this is a narrow two-lane road, one way each direction and the car would have had to swerve into my lane to avoid hitting the cyclist. And I didn't want to get hit. Had I been hit, it would have been more the cyclists fault then the drivers.

Again, agreed, and again I ask how many drivers do you have in England who are driving without a license? Either because it's been suspended or they just never bothered to get one in the first place? The last sentence I can't really agree with. If they've allowed themselves to become distracted because they were answering their cell phone, changing CD's or looking up a location on their GPS is someone that we need to be protected from.

Sadly, as you say this is the worst part of the justice system. The victim is still dead and nothing is ever going to bring them back. But making the punishment fit the crime and/or filing a wrongful death suit does go (in theory at least) a long way to making the family of the deceased whole.

Digital_Cowboy

A big part of the problem though is how many motorists are out there driving on suspended licenses? How many are driving with a permanently revoked license? How many are driving with a license that they bought because they bribed someone? How many just never bothered getting a license? The short answer is that there are too many. And obviously the existing penalties are not sufficient to deter people from doing so.

Sadly, you're probably right in that a person will get a steeper sentence for stealing a car vs. hitting and killing someone with said car.

jon c. 

I recently lost my brother when he died after a collision when a truck pulled directly in front of his motor scooter. Guy said he didn't see him in the sun and no charges were filed. And frankly, I don't much care. Putting the guy in jail wouldn't bring my brother back nor would it make the highways any safer for two wheeled vehicles. We imprison more people per capita in this country than in any other nation on the planet. (We used to trail South Africa and China, but they've modified their ways). This means that either we as a people are some really nasty folks, or we're going about solving our criminal justice problems in the wrong manner. Most of our states are in budget crisis and prison costs play a huge role in that. If California could roll back prison costs to 1990 levels, their entire budget deficit would vanish. We need to get over our compulsion to lock people up.

(Having said all that, I'll add it's a good thing I'm not likely to ever come face to face with this guy. If I did, I might end up looking at some serious time for manslaughter. I may not think from a philosophical perspective that jail is the answer, but that does not mean I have any forgiveness in my heart.)

enigmaT120

Maybe he'll get around by bicycle after getting out of prison. What is the penalty for driving before he gets his license back?

I do find that I'm more aware of bicyclists on the roads after starting it up again myself than I was before. I do think that primarily being a motorcycle rider did a lot for my awareness too, though.

SteveSGP

What do cyclists get charged with when they hit and kill a pedestrian?

Digital_Cowboy

As I've already said I am not a criminal, so no I have never been to prison. And yes, I know that they're no walk in the park. But still I think it is not too big of a stretch to say that they probably still have it better on the inside then they did on the outside.

I never said that people "wanted" to go to prison. But it would not surprise me if particularly for the career criminal. That they see it as part of the "cost" of their "career."

Digital_Cowboy

I was using the "good" doctor as an example, I know that this person isn't the "good" doctor. And also as we have seen/heard here many of these drivers do in fact have a history of passing close to cyclists, or brake checking cyclists, or engaging in other anti-social behavior towards cyclists.

I'm sorry, but that is pretty much how you're coming across, i.e. the loss of a life isn't worth a lengthy prison sentence. If the loss of an innocent life isn't, then what is?

Agreed, but we've seen time-and-time again that suspending a license, revoking a license, fines, or community service hasn't been up to this point, been an effective deterrent.