Life is cheap in Colorado, where a driver walked without a day behind bars for killing a cyclist
https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/jefferson-county-judge-hands-down-probationary-sentence-to-driver-who-hit-killed-cyclistOpen linkView original on feddit.uk
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"Black faced up to 90 days in jail as a result of the charges in the plea deal, as well as a fine.
Ultimately, Judge Corinne Magid sentenced Black to 12 months of supervised probation and 200 hours of community service. His license was suspended for a year, and he must pay a $150 fine."
The victim's family asked for six days of jail time, to mirror their "jail" time of waiting/worrying in the ICU.
That last paragraph made me so sad
Suspending the license for a year is absurd. That's all a human life is worth? I lost my license for life because of a health problem. If I can figure it out, so can a fucking killer.
I lost my license for 2 month because they thought i smoked weed. I didn't, the pee and blood test proved it. But still
In my country they would probably scrap the community service, too, because -to paraphrase judges in such cases- that poor driver already has to live with the knowledge that he killed someone, which is already such a harsh punishment...
It's insane what terminal car brain does to a society.
I’ve heard multiple times, if you want to kill someone use a car.
What a broken legal system to even create a situation where this is normal.
Thought it was talking about the cost of living for a second
Glad I wasn't the only one
I feel like if someone did a killing with their car and was let off, and someone enacted vigilante justice of their own, I wouldn't vote to convict.
In most cases like this the prosecutors don't even charge the driver because they know the jury will be full of drivers, not cyclists, and it will be impossible to get a conviction anyway. This guy pleaded guilty for some reason but usually the jurors will think "I'm a driver and I may be a similar situation some day. I wouldn't like to go to jail for something like that".
Jury nullification cuts both ways.
The family asked for a few days in jail.
The sentences for those that kill others with their cars are far too lenient. I feel sorry for the family who lost a loved one because of this.
Come to Colorado! For just $150 you can splatter us on the road!
I seriously doubt he walked.
He lost his licence. How's the public transport there?
Was the driver really rich?
If it were a gun instead of a car with the same result the penalties would probably differ quite a bit. Both can be seen as lethal weapons. Hopefully the family files a civil case asking for millions to bankrupt the guy who hit the cyclist.
That's pretty fucked. It's one state over.
If you ignore Utah, and large parts of Colorado and Nevada.
All three are large Western States. Jefferson county is close to Denver.
Flying out of Nevada also implies either Reno or Vegas.
So worth the flight. The actual fucked up part is the probation for vehicular homicide.
Nah, there's trains and busses. I don't think a cyclist would appreciate flying for that.
There's no passenger train connection between Reno or Vegas and Denver. And the Bus route is a Greyhound that takes a bit over a day each way.
The absolute shortest dive between Vegas and Denver is 750 miles, or 1200km. This is over 10 hours of driving, which via bus takes much longer due to the many, many small town stops in between.
There are several direct flights every day, and round trip will cost you just over $100, and that's for short notice.
Flights should be illegal. Take the bus to the train.
Sure, take the non-existent train, or spend several days on a bus when a flight makes the same trip several times a day.
No it isn't. Utah is between them. Reno to Denver is a 15 hour drive and just shy of 1,000 miles. It's pretty comparable to driving from Amsterdam to Barcelona. I know for a fact Europeans take shorter flights than that on a regular basis. Is that sufficient explanation for you or do you still want to be an asshole about a guy trying to get closure for his dead friend?
It's illegal to fly domestically in parts of Europe, and it should be the same in the US. There's trains.
It definitely is not. The closest is France banning short flights where there are alternative train routes available of 2.5 hours or less, which would be equivalent to a 30-40 minutes flight.
Flying from Nevada to Colorado takes almost 2 hours, there is no train route, and bus takes a full day.
Vegas to Fort Collins is 12 hours. Idk what his route was but both of those states are bigger than many countries.
STFU
I see you have never been there.
I have. I traveled the entire width of all 3 states by bicycle.