I understand everything you are saying and agree with you.
This man has a history of drug arrests and has never been punished, as the judges felt he shouldnt have to admit to being a felon.
There is a test available to show whether he was impaired and the State Attorney has decided not to do the test. My Dad's life was weighed against an $800 test.
This was not a case of someone jumping off a curb or not looking where he was going.
An attorney has told us that my Dad had "legal control of the road" as a pedestrian. Ne had navigated 4 lanes and a median.
David Lanier has over 20 arrests. I've only mentioned the drug arrests.
Knowing that he has a history of drug abuse and arrests, knowing that he had drug paraphernalia in his automobile, knowing that trained police officers suspected that he was under the influence, knowing that my Dad wasnt in the middle of the road and this person had ample time to spot him and stop should tell you along with everyone else, including the State Attorney, that this man should have been tested and should not be driving.
You can play devil's advocate all you like, but everything I know and believe tells me this man is guilty and should be punished in some way.
Instead, he has been let go with not a single penalty.
I hope you are this understanding should a person suspected of being impaired kill someone you love (god forbid). I hope you are rational enough to question when he used an illegal substance.
I understand your pain and frustration, and i apologize if I offended you at all. I have actually been on both sides of this situation in my life. I believe in punishing people for breaking the law, but i want them to be 100% in their conviction, i still believe people are innocent until Proven guilty. If they have the tools , the Govt. needs to use them whatever the cost.
I have a family member that was killed by a drunk driver in Chicago back in 93. It changed our lives forever, yet the person who killed her was only in prison for about 5 years. It was actually in a situation very similar to yours, but there were 2 people hit by the car, one lived, one didnt, the driver of course was injury free.
In 2001 i was in glamis , its a huge desert filled with sand dunes that thousands of people go to ride dirt bikes and dune buggies and the like. I was riding with my roommate in his truck and we got stopped by the cops on the way in, while searching for the people we were meeting. LOTS of people drink and drive out there, and it is a huge problem and i understand they need to patrol and watch for it. We weren't drinking AT ALL that day. my roommate was taken out and questioned and asked the usual battery of questions. They searched our car, we had nothing to hide. So we thought. Nick had a pill bottle in his luggage with percocet in it, he had had a tooth pulled earlier that week, it was prescribed to him. It comes with a warning about driving while taking them. He had NOT taken any that day, the last time he took any was the day before we left for the trip. do you think the cop believed him? NOPE. They decided that he was a young punk kid that had to be lying so Nick got arrested and taken to the jail which was like an hour away. they tested his Urine and sure enough, it showed an Opiate in his system. DUH !! this is common knowledge, it stays in your system LONG after the effects of the drug stop working. They didnt care that he was missing a tooth that was still all bloody and gross, they didnt care that he had a legal prescription for that drug, they didnt care that he told them he hadnt taken any that day. They only cared that his urine showed there was some form of opiate in his system. Did the cops let me keep the keys to his truck so i could drive it for him? nope. they towed his truck and told me to take a hike and find my other friends. We went to have a good weekend and to have some fun riding dirt bikes and the weekend was over before it even started.
THANK GOD he was able to get a judge that could reason and would actually listen, he was able to get the charges dropped , but that was months later, it didnt recover our weekend, the bail money, the tow truck and all the rest.
I know these 2 cases dont exactly correlate, but if they would just freaking test people for how MUCH is in their system and establish a time when they last took it, BOTH of us would be better off.
my roommate did NOTHING wrong, but the cops didnt care. it sounds like your guy may have dont a LOT wrong, but they dont seem to care to test him properly. Thats all i am saying. They have the ability to test for these things and they dont , either because they are cheap, or they just dont care about justice, i dont know, but it aggravates me either way.
this reminds me of another situation i had, my car was broken into about a year ago, they broke the drivers side window and while reaching in to unlock the door, the thief cut his arm and bled all over the drivers seat, not a huge amount of blood, but must have been a decent cut. They stole all the things inside my car, but couldnt get the radio out. I figure, this is great though, they can test the blood and see if its either a repeat offender, or they can put it in their system and see if a match comes up in the future. Do the cops do that? Nope. they would come out and Fingerprint they said, but they wont take blood samples unless there has been a murder or a violent crime. Another case of the government being to cheap to test things properly. It just gets old....
And i am VERY sorry Kevin for your loss and for the way my post sounded, i dont mean to discount the huge tragedy that this is. I would be just as angry as you are, i didnt mean to sound argumentative with you or others, i am very sorry.