Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart killed in hit-and-run

If so, my mistake.

 

Or perhaps she was an extremely responsible and focused driver who simply had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We don't know and it seems a bit unfair to assume anything negative about the driver of the car Adenhart was in.

What we know is Gallo was drunk, and it wasn't the first time he had driven in that condition. And we know after killing three people, he took off in a failed attempt to save his own skin rather than try to help the people he had just run into.

Unlike the case of Leonard Little, this time the victim is the professional athlete and the defendant doesn't have money and fame to protect him. Let's hope that is enough for the law to do its job this time.

 

Just take the slam dunk of three homicide convictions and move along, not so easy to prove that this guy intended to kill these people. Between three homicides, a second dui, driving with a suspended licesnse, leaving the scene and whatever other charges are mixed in there, the guy would get some serious jail time. This smells a bit of DA grandstanding.

 

Wow, as shocking as the crime was because of the victim's status, out-and-out murder is an awfully high standard for the prosecution to meet.

 

Evening shift on Friday, three major traumas, all drunk drivers.

The stats for 2007: 12,998 drunk driver deaths in the US. Next time you go to a basketabll or hockey game, look in the stands and imagine all the people gone. Alcoholrelated car crashes kill someone every 31 minutes and injure someone every two minutes.

No such thing as a minor drunk driving incident.

 

Is it simply a strategic move? To give him more room to plea bargain down to an offense that is still serious enough to keep the guy behind bars for a long time?

 

It's certainly not out of the question for the guy to wind up being convicted of second-degree murder charges.

A quick search turned up this California standard for the "implied malice" needed for that charge:

And specific to drunk drivers who are charged with murder, California courts have said there are four factors necessary to gain and uphold a conviction for murder:

Given his past history, it's not too big of a jump to envision him winding up being convicted of murder in these deaths.

 

Nah. Under California law, reckless indifference for the lives of others equals second-degree murder.

 

That fits in with the comments from the prosecutor I saw on TV, where he specifically mentioned the driver's past history of DUI as a factor.

 

Be a nice place to reinstitute the death penalty. One way or the others, it would get these fuckers to quit.

 

Because so many states that do have the death penalties use it on DUI cases all the time.

 

That's not the way thought processes go.

Drunkerd sits at bar, says to himself, "No, I must stop after this second gin and tonic, because if I have a third, I will be involved in a hit-and-run and will receive the death penalty."

If you're thinking of it as a deterrent, the reasoning does not follow.