But Not Short Enough

This post is in response to a link a friend put on Facebook. After looking at the link and reflecting a bit, I found I have opinions on the subject, but not ones that are short enough for a comment on Facebook.

To summarize the story: A woman was changed with and convicted of vehicular homicide after her son was killed crossing the street under her supervision where there was no crosswalk.

For particulars, you might want to look at these links. I have put the one that I was referred to first:

• Prosecuting the victim, absolving the perpetrators
  
• When design kills: The criminalization of walking
  
• Jaywalkers take deadly risks
• Pedestrian convicted of vehicular homicide in own child's death
• Was Raquel Nelson Jaywalking . . .?

As I said above, I have opinions. Let's start counting them. . .

1. I have to assume that by the letter of the law, she was guilty. Words I heard about another case apply here, too: "Maybe we should trust our American jury system before . . . the court of public opinion. Maybe the jury, who sat through more testimony than any of us did, knew something we don’t. . ."
2. I don't see a reason to conclude that the conviction of a poor black woman by six middle-class whites was racist or "classist," as some of the linked articles imply. Rather, I assume that the jury did their best to make a determination based on the evidence presented, the law as it was explained to them, and the instruction they received on their role in a trial.
3. I'm not fond of the letter of the law. And if the point the pundits are trying to make is that people more familiar with Ms. Nelson's circumstances would have been more inclined to question their instructions, then they are right.
   
4. Laws are often bad, especially those related to traffic. For instance, maximum fines for speeding, even when doubled in work zones, are often less than maximum fines for travelling illegally in the HOV lane. The first is a serious safety concern, the second an exercise in social engineering. Naturally the second is the one the social engineers want to discourage more.
5. Those are our government, by the way.
   
6. Not every bad event requires that everyone involved (or even anyone at all) be blamed and punished to the extent possible. The case should never have gone to trial. That was the county prosecutor's call.
7. The penal system can have one of two legitimate purposes -- either it exists to preserve society in its current form, or it exists to identify and reform those who require reform in order to be a part of it. Neither of these purposes is served by this conviction.
   
8. The trend to punish everyone involved to the extent possible probably comes from a fear of being accused of bias, and finding unthinking application of simplistic policies to be the best way to demonstrate lack of a bias. This is the same thinking that prevents profiling in airports at the expense of promoting embarrassing and invasive searches of children and the elderly, or results in expulsions of children who take toy weapons to school. Unfortunately, this demonstration of no bias doesn't demonstrate fairness and impartiality in our authorities; it dehumanizes them.
9. The Cobb County prosecutor does not deserve oxygen.
   
10. The links provided above are mostly blogs, and the responses to those posts are highly polarized. Oddly, the one that seems to be gathering the most sympathy for the woman is the one by Forbes, which again leads me to question the "racist" interpretations.
11. The distance which is reported from the bus stop to the nearest pedestrian crossing on the road is ludicrous. The respondents who point out that she was not at a crossing may be technically correct, but those who say they would have gone the long way around have no concept of distance or are lying.
12. Yes, I would have jaywalked in those circumstances. In fact, in some of the places I've lived and worked, I routinely did.
13. Like many people, I wonder about the driver who spent 6 months of his 2 year sentence in jail and is now out with 5 years of probation for his third hit-and-run conviction. But it's not germane to the discussion.
    
14. I also think that drunk driving is willfully putting others at risk, and therefore reject the assertion that any sympathy is due because the driver didn't want this. He didn't care.
15. What is germane to the discussion is the photo of the area that was provided in the first link. It clearly shows that this happened in a residential area. So why is high speed traffic allowed in a residential area?
16. Or, why am I surprised that it is. Sure, where and when I grew, I didn't see it -- but the city thirty miles north of me has roads like that. It just doesn't have enough population to support such a public transportation system.
17. I do not agree with those who are promoting the position that the "highway designers, traffic engineers, transit planners and land use regulators" are perpetrators of a crime here. Yes, the design is bad. But the design probably wasn't provided as a whole. It grew incrementally, with different individuals having limited scope and authority. The result is too diffuse to hold these individuals responsible.
18. Seriously. What are people proposing to correct the situation? A crosswalk.
    
19. Crosswalks are only paint, and paint doesn't have much stopping capacity.
    

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