This essay is a very long one (12,854 words) but the issue is so important; I couldn’t leave out the many details that were necessary to get my point across. I hope you find it both informative and interesting.
The only thing that gets me more angrier than reading about dangerous drivers who kill innocent persons on the road; is reading about soft-hearted and soft-headed judges who merely give these killers a slap on the wrist for their crimes.
In January 2009, a Bulgarian court sentenced former world ice dancing champion Maxim Staviski to 2 1/2 years in prison for a fatal drunk driving accident. The court overturned an earlier ‘suspended sentence’ awarded to this driver.
Staviski, 31, was found guilty of crashing his car into an oncoming vehicle in August 2007. A 23-year-old man died and an 18-year-old woman was severely injured in the accident.
Police records showed Staviski's blood-alcohol level was more than double the legal limit. Staviski was released pending his appeal. He was also ordered to pay 270,000 leva (C$228,480) in compensation
On the night of January 24th, 2006, Alexander Ryazanov and Wang-Piao Dumani Ross, both 18, were speeding north on Mount Pleasant in Toronto, Ontario in their parents' Mercedes-Benzes, hitting speeds estimated between 80 and 140 km/h. The posted limit is 60 km/h. At about 10:20 p.m., Ryazanov's 1999 silver Mercedes T-boned Tahir Khan's Diamond taxi as the cab driver was making a left turn onto Whitehall Rd.
In March 2007, Justice John Moore sentenced each of these two thugs to a year's house arrest, followed by a year's curfew and two years' probation.
The sentence sparked an uproar. The Crown appealed and in the summer of 2008, he asked that each be handed a three-year jail sentence. The Ontario Court of Appeal rejected the Crown's attempt to overturn their conditional sentences awarded against them by their trial judge.
Alexander Ryazanov and Wang-Piao Dumani Ross, both later 20, would have to spend the rest of their sentences under house arrest and their four-year driving prohibitions had been increased to seven-year bans, the province's highest court said in a ruling released on October 2nd, 2008.
The appellate court said the sentencing objectives of general deterrence could be addressed within the framework of conditional sentences. It then went on to say; "However, the problem lies in the conditions of the sentences imposed and the length of driving prohibition."
The conditions imposed, particularly in the second half of the sentences, amount to merely being grounded without driving privileges. The respondents continue to go to school and work. Now that the first year is over, they have complete freedom during the day and can even go out after curfew with a parent's note.
The court said this fell short of being a "sufficiently strong" deterrent. By extending the driving ban by three years after the young men have finished their conditional sentences and probation, the court said it hoped that would have "a meaningful impact, particularly in terms of general deterrence."
I think the fact that no jail sentence was awarded is clear evidence that the punishment fell short of being a sufficiently strong deterrent.
These two young men made a reckless decision and killed a taxi driver. If they had lost control and gone up on a sidewalk and hit a mother with a child in a stroller, would they get the same sentence? Probably they would if sentenced by the same judge.
Sukhvir Singh Khosa was convicted in 2002, along with Bahadur Singh Bhalru, in the street-racing death of 51-year-old Irene Thorpe in Vancouver, British Columbia. The two were given conditional sentences (house arrest) and the government then moved to send them back to India. Bhalru left in 2005 but Khosa, who moved to Canada in 1996 when he was 14, fought the order on humanitarian grounds. In March 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld his deportation to India.
Was sentencing these two thugs to a conditional sentence appropriate? I hardly think so.
On February 26th, 2008, a young Mississauga man was sent to jail for only 15 months for causing a car crash that killed two of his friends in the summer of 2003. Justice Joseph Fragomeni also banned Ariel Lipovetzky, who had been convicted of dangerous driving causing death, from driving for three years. The 22-year-old was to also serve two years probation once his sentence is served.
Michael Mizun and Daniel Kordis, Lipovetzky's back-seat passengers, died when he lost control of his mother's Toyota Corolla on Rathburn Rd. in Mississauga and crashed into a tree around 10:30 p.m. on July 11th, 2003.
In giving him a jail sentence, Fragomeni said no sentence would ever be as harsh as having to live with the knowledge that one's actions took the lives of two friends. I disagree. I think anyone that drives in such a manner knowing that he may crash and kill someone in the crash will probably have no difficulty in living with the memory of his crime.
At the time of his conviction, Fragomeni ruled Lipovetzky had been "apparently racing" with another vehicle when he crashed the car. But Fragomeni acquitted the young man of criminal negligence causing death.Why the judge didn’t think the crime was criminal negligence is beyond my understanding.
Section 220 of Canada’s criminal code states;
‘Every person who by criminal negligence causes death to another person is guilty of an indictable offence (felony in the US) and subject to a minimum of four years and a maximum of life imprisonment.’
The crown (prosecutor) must show the court that the accused drove his vehicle in a manner that could be construed to mean that there was a wanton or reckless disregard that was to be drawn from the conduct of the accused which falls below the applicable standard expected of motorists when driving on the road. If the crown can show that, then the charge of ‘criminal negligence can be made out.
Criminal negligence requires two elements, they being; the gravity of the possible harm and the degree of the disregard of the motorist for that harm that can be done to others on the road. Given the risk involved in driving at a high rate of speed in an area where one must drive much slower, the accused must not only show a disregard for the risk he can bring upon other users of the road but also show a wanton or reckless disregard for others he puts at risk.
At his trial, Lipovetzky testified that he felt the back of his car give out. He panicked and slammed on the brakes and ended up in the grass. That in my opinion is not an excuse considering the fact that he caused this to happen because he chose to speed on a wet road in an area of the road where he was required by the speed sign, to drive much slower.
In his earlier judgment, Fragomeni concluded Lipovetzky had been travelling close to 99 km/h in a 50 km/h zone on wet conditions. At 18, he described the accused as an inexperienced driver and said that alcohol played no role in the deadly crash.
I don’t care that the young man was an inexperienced driver. Anyone who drives close to 99 km/h in a 50 km/h zone on wet conditions and is an inexperienced driver to boot, is driving his vehicle without any care whatsoever as to the welfare of his passengers or others on the road, and as such, is criminally negligent in the manner of his driving.
The negligence proved against him by evidence of his driving at a high rate of speed in an area where the speed must be much lower was a marked departure from the norm and the fatalities that came as a direct result of his driving added fuel to his conduct to bring him within the realm of him driving in a marked departure from the norm. All the crown really had to do was to show that the accused drove in a manner that showed that while he was driving his vehicle, he did so with wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons.
Consequences of the manner of driving however are not material in making a decision as to the guilt or innocence. It is the manner of the driving that brings the offence into the realm of driving in a manner that is a departure from the norm.
This dangerous driver only got 15 months in jail. But in Canada, anyone sentenced to jail is automatically eligible for release from jail after serving only two-thirds of his sentence. This means that this man would only have to serve ten months in jail for killing two persons which is two and a half months in jail for each life that his stupidity extinguished. Is that what the lives of each of his two victims are worth; only forty-five days in jail? Does anyone reading this essay really believe that this sentence was one that was appropriate?
A teen driver in Barrie, Ontario who stank of alcohol after a crash that killed his 16-year-old girlfriend was sentenced to only 18 months in jail for dangerous driving causing death after the Crown dropped more serious alcohol-related charges.
Jacob Duclos, then 18, was initially charged with impaired driving causing death which can carry a maximum penalty of life in prison after his speeding car crashed killing, Cherise Rijtma, who was in the back seat of his car.
At the sentencing hearing, Justice Gregory Regis heard that three hours after the accident Duclos had an alcohol level of 65 ml., well below that of a drunk driver. What the court didn't hear was that an hour after the crash a breathalyzer test recorded 103 ml. The legal limit is 80.
Duclos, who had a G1 learner's permit that banned him from drinking any alcohol before driving, borrowed his friend's mother's car after having some shots of rye on January 18th, 2007. Duclos sped along city streets, hit a snow bank, went through a stop sign and passed a friend in another vehicle, reaching 92 km/h in a 50 km/h zone before the accident. During his ride four other friends in the vehicle warned him to slow down and one teen yelled at him to "stop driving like an idiot," but he refused to listen. Rijtma, who was days away from her 17th birthday, was killed when the car fishtailed and skidded sideways, then slammed into a concrete street light pole. Officer Neil Towns, who arrested Duclos at the scene, testified Duclos "stank of alcohol" and staggered.
A spokesman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving said she is irate at the sentence. She asked, "I understand that this boy is very sorry, but what message does this give to every other 18-year-old out there?"
The defendant only had to serve serve 15 months of the 18-month sentence after a two-for-one credit for 49 days he served in jail while waiting to get out on bail.
At the time of his fatal driving incident, Duclos was already on a court order to stay away from the friend whose mother lent him the car. Earlier, the duo were charged with stealing a fire extinguisher from their high school.
At the time of the accident, Duclos had already been suspended from his school nine times for truancy, swearing, disrespect and smoking marijuana. He was originally denied bail when the justice of the peace said his parents have no control over their son.
Is 18 months a suitable sentence for killing someone because the driver is drunk while he is driving his vehicle and driving so dangerously, that even his friends demand that he stop the car? I don’t think so.
It is beyond me why the crown didn’t proceed with the charge of impaired driving causing death which can carry a maximum penalty of life in prison. Although he wouldn’t have been sentenced to spending the rest of his life in prison, he could be sentenced to the seven-year-minimum of the life sentence and in my opinion, that is what he should have received if not more.
Caleb Harrison, 35, drank and crashed his Mercedes head-on into a taxi with four young men, who chose to be driven home instead of risking driving because they had been drinking. Harrison had a blood alcohol level of more than 200 - more than 2 1/2 times the legal limit - when his Mercedes slammed head-on into the taxi on Derry Rd. near the Fifth Line in Southern Ontario. At the time of the crash, Harrison was under 24 months of probation after being convicted of a domestic assault in February 2007. Further, he was on bail and under a court order to not consume alcohol when he killed Rayment on July 2, 2005 while driving while impaired. Four young passengers in the taxi were also injured in the 3 a.m. crash. Three suffered several fractures and all remain traumatized.
Harrison's Mercedes was travelling east on Derry Rd. when it crossed into the westbound lane. He suffered a broken leg and a hip injury.
In a tragic twist of fate, Harrison was supposed to be the designated driver that night for his friends at a house keg party. In fact, his friends refused to get in his car and he sped passed them just before the crash. They pulled him from his burning car.
Halton Crown prosecutor Jim Coppolino sought a jail sentence of between 21 to 24 months. Defence lawyer Doug Lendt asked for a conditional sentence of house arrest.
Both recommendations are disgusting. As it turned out, he was given 18 months imprisonment. That’s also disgusting. His sentence includes two years probation once he has completed his jail sentence.
The gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility requires serious incarceration for someone like Harrison whose drunken driving ends the life of another person. Eighteen moths imprisonment is hardly what anyone can call serious incarceration. Not even five years imprisonment is serious incarceration.
A drunk driver who killed four people and was banned for life got his licence back in an apparent bureaucratic foul-up, Kevin Scott, 41, of Kingston, had been given a seven-year sentence and a lifetime driving ban in 1999, after pleading guilty to causing a crash while driving drunk in a stolen vehicle. Four people were killed in the crash and two others were injured. He served only five years in prison for the deaths of four people. Released on parole in 2004, Scott promptly reapplied for, and was granted, a driving permit. Now that is stupid.
What is really stupid is the fact that after killing four people, the judge said that he only had to serve five years in prison. That meant that he served 15 months for each of the lives he took.
Feliciano Salas, a 23-year-old chronic drunken driver from Ravenna, Ohio was sent to prison for at least eight years for causing a three-vehicle crash August 7th 2008 in Moorland Township that killed another driver.
The driver of one of the other vehicles, Kenneth James Sturtevant, 55, of Ravenna, died while being airlifted from the scene. Sturtevant had been pinned inside his Ford Escort. Salas also was injured.
The third driver, Robert Powell, 40, of 2591 S. Slocum, was northbound on Slocum and trying to make a left turn onto Laketon when Salas' full-size sport utility vehicle rear-ended Powell's SUV. The impact sent Powell's vehicle into Sturtevant's car, which was southbound on Slocum, police said. Sturtevant and Salas were pinned in their vehicles.
Muskegon County Circuit Judge Timothy G. Hicks sentenced Salas to two prison terms of eight years four months to 15 years for driving while impaired causing death and driving with a suspended license causing death, and two terms of 18 months to five years for driving while impaired causing serious injury and third-offense drunken driving. The terms are to be served at the same time. Salas received credit for five months already served in jail.Hicks also ordered Salas to pay $1,742 in fines, costs and restitution.
Now that sentence is a bit more reasonable but even eight years is a small price to pay for ending another’s life because of drunken stupidity.
An Oakey, Queensland, Australia man, Greg Butt, lost his wife of 25 years and his only son in a tragic car accident on the Warrego Highway near Kingsthorpe in 2006. Crown prosecutor Paul Alsbury told the court Jolley, who lived in Melbourn, Australia, had been trying to overtake a sedan in front of her and a B-double road train in front of that sedan when the collision occurred about 6.30am, on September 13th, 2006.
Samara Elizabeth Jolley, 30, pleaded guilty in March 2008 before the Toowoomba District Court to a charge of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing the deaths of Mr. Butt's wife Sharlene, 42, and their 15-year-old son Jaiman.
Witnesses in other vehicles estimated Jolley's silver Honda coupe to be doing between 110 and 120km/h when she drove it to overtake the car and road train (Transport tractor with several trailers being drawn by it.) ahead of her.
Witnesses in the car behind the road train, and another vehicle about 300 metres behind that car, said they had seen the Butts' car coming in the other direction before Jolley drove to overtake the vehicle ahead of her.
After the manoeuvre, Jolley's car swerved violently back on to the correct side of the road in front of the road train, but her car had then "fish-tailed" out of control and crossed back on to the wrong side of the road into the path of Mrs. Butt's car Sharlene and Jaiman Butt died at the scene.
Senior Judge Gilbert Trafford-Walker described Jolley's decision to overtake on that stretch of highway that morning as "an appalling lack of judgement". Although Jolley had no previous criminal history, she had previous traffic infringements including five speeding offences; three in the nine months leading up to the accident.
The judge sentenced her to three years jail with the majority of the term to be suspended after she had served only 10 months.
The sentence outraged Mr. Butt, his family and friends who attended yesterday's sentence hearing. He asked, "What price do you put on two lives...10 months?" The answer is; five months each. Mr. Butt quite rightly asked, "Where is the deterrent? She will get out of jail and get her driver's licence back and her life will go on.”
Jolley's barrister Stephen Zillman told the court his client had suffered very serious injuries in the crash which arose from a "deep and terrible misjudgement" in overtaking the vehicles that day. Further, she had been medically discharged from the Army and her promising career in the defence force was largely over, due to her conviction and jailing.
She will be able to apply to have her licence back after two years. While she is driving her car again, the bodies of her two victims are buried in their graves.
On March 4th, 2006, around 11 p.m., 17-year-old Andrew Suedat drove his father's van into Kevin Persaud during a marijuana deal that went sour in Canmore Park in east Toronto. He then circled and ran over him again. Persaud died of crushing head injuries.
The judge, Superior Court Justice Christopher Speyer, knew that it wasn’t an accident but rather a deliberate intent to murder the victim when he said during his decision, "It is difficult to accept, in my view, that the accused didn't see the deceased's prostrate body when he ran over Mr. Persaud a second time." The judge took into consideration that Suedat was trying to help his cousin, whom he believed to be in trouble during the dispute. "With passions at the boil, I find as a fact the accused's judgment to have been seriously compromised."
The judge also said, He also said Suedat is deeply remorseful. The victim's family later disputed that point. How would the judge really know that the young thug really was remorseful?
Suedat, now 21 years of age at the time of this writing, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on February 1st 2008 as prosecutors Paul Vesa and Jason Balgopal had almost finished presenting their evidence at his trial on a charge of second-degree murder. If he had been found guilty of second-degree murder, he would have been sentenced to prison for a minimum of ten years and a maximum of twenty-five years.
The penalty for manslaughter on the other hand is much lower. There is no minimum sentence of imprisonment for manslaughter but there is a maximum sentence of imprisonment for life. A sentence of imprisonment for life means that the defendant must serve at least seven years before he becomes eligible to apply for parole. Second degree murder in Canada is considered to have been committed when the perpetrator on the spur of the moment, deliberately kills someone but in doing so, he is so angry, he can’t control his emotions.
Culpable homicide that would otherwise be murder may be reduced to manslaughter if it is established that it was caused by the heat of passion such as anger that would be sufficient to deprive an ordinary person the power of self-control. Manslaughter takes place when the perpetrator kills another person but he doesn’t intend to kill him. Quite frankly, I find it difficult to believe that Suedat didn’t intend to kill his victim considering the fact that he deliberately ran over his victim twice
On February 28th, 2008, after the sentence was awarded to Suedat, the family of a 17-year-old, who was killed after the teenage driver ran over him twice, erupted in outrage when a judge sentenced him to only six years in prison. Naresh Persaud, 44, father of the victim, said, "It's a slap in our face." Then he asked a very pertinent question. "What is the value of life in our country now?"
Suedat will serve five years, after credit for time served while waiting for his trial.
The judge said that Suedat would have got seven years in prison for second degree murder if he hadn’t pleaded guilty to manslaughter. I don’t see how that would be possible considering the fact that the minimum sentence of imprisonment for second degree murder is ten years. In any case, is seven years in prison a sufficient sentence for killing a human being? Further, is even six years imprisonment The sentence he actually received) appropriate for purposely running over a person with your car, not just once but twice and killing him in the process?
A teen driver in Barrie, Ontario who stank of alcohol after a crash that killed his 16-year-old girlfriend was sentenced to only 18 months in jail for dangerous driving causing death after the Crown dropped more serious alcohol-related charges.
Jacob Duclos, then 18, was initially charged with impaired driving causing death which can carry a maximum penalty of life in prison after his speeding car crashed killing, Cherise Rijtma, who was in the back seat of his car.
At the sentencing hearing, Justice Gregory Regis heard that three hours after the accident Duclos had an alcohol level of 65 ml., well below that of a drunk driver. What the court didn't hear was that an hour after the crash a breathalyzer test recorded 103 ml. The legal limit is 80.
Duclos, who had a G1 learner's permit that banned him from drinking any alcohol before driving, borrowed his friend's mother's car after having some shots of rye on January 18th, 2007. Duclos sped along city streets, hit a snow bank, went through a stop sign and passed a friend in another vehicle, reaching 92 km/h in a 50 km/h zone before the accident. During his ride four other friends in the vehicle warned him to slow down and one teen yelled at him to "stop driving like an idiot," but he refused to listen. Rijtma, who was days away from her 17th birthday, was killed when the car fishtailed and skidded sideways, then slammed into a concrete street light pole.
Officer Neil Towns, who arrested Duclos at the scene, testified Duclos "stank of alcohol" and staggered.
A spokesman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving said she is irate at the sentence. She asked, "I understand that this boy is very sorry, but what message does this give to every other 18-year-old out there?"
The defendant only had to serve serve 15 months of the 18-month sentence after a two-for-one credit for 49 days he served in jail while waiting to get out on bail.
At the time of his fatal driving incident, Duclos was already on a court order to stay away from the friend whose mother lent him the car. Earlier, the duo were charged with stealing a fire extinguisher from their high school. At the time of the accident, Duclos had already been suspended from his school nine times for truancy, swearing, disrespect and smoking marijuana. He was originally denied bail when the justice of the peace said his parents have no control over their son.
Is 18 months a suitable sentence for killing someone because the driver is drunk while he is driving his vehicle and driving so dangerously, that even his friends demand that he stop the car? I don’t think so.
It is beyond me why the crown didn’t proceed with the charge of impaired driving causing death which can carry a maximum penalty of life in prison. Although he wouldn’t have been sentenced to spending the rest of his life in prison, he could be sentenced to the seven-year-minimum of the life sentence and in my opinion, that is what he should have received if not more.
Sometimes dangerous drivers have a history of dangerousness. A knife-carrying thug, Craig Douglas, 44, of Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, killed a man in a car crash while high on cocaine ... after he was freed early from a jail term for attempted murder. Douglas was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in 2001 for stabbing a man seven times in a tavern washroom. But he was let out early in 2004.
Then in April 2006, Craig Douglas, 44, smashed his Mercedes into university lecturer Richard Greig's car while driving on the wrong side of the road. Tests found cocaine in his bloodstream. Other drivers saw Douglas swerving across the road, braking for no reason and repeatedly clipping the verge. He did not brake or sweve before the crash. At the High Court in Edinburgh, he admitted causing Richard's death by driving dangerously while unfit through drugs.
He fled abroad after the crash but returned in April of 2007 and gave himself up. Douglas was sent back to prison to complete his attempted murder sentence. He was due to be freed in August 2009, but on December 20th 2007 he was jailed for five years and seven months after causing Richard's death by dangerous driving. It means he will stay behind bars until at least the summer of 2010. His guilty plea saved him from a seven-year sentence. Justice Lady Dorrian banned him from driving for 10 years and ordered him to redo his driving test.
This thug should never have been released ahead of the expiry of his sentence for attempted murder. If he was still in prison, Richard Grieg would still be alive today.
One thing you can be sure about American judges; they don’t pussy-foot around when it comes to sentencing criminals.
On December 22nd, 2007, a judge in Worchester, Massachusetts, considered the conduct of a mother of four who had a history of alcoholism for her role in an accident the previous year in Northboro that left a 21-year-old Shrewsbury man dead.
Alison J. Voorhis, 48, formerly of Hopkinton, pleaded guilty November 13th in Worcester Superior Court to motor vehicle manslaughter and drunken driving charges stemming from a September 24th, 2006, accident on Otis Street in Northboro that claimed the life of Evagelos V. Pashos. Ms. Voorhis was the driver of a rental car that investigators said was traveling between 67 and 90 mph (107 km/h and 144 km.h) in a 25 mph (40 km/h) zone when it crossed into the oncoming lane of traffic and struck Mr. Pashos’ vehicle head-on. Michael F. Poznysz, a passenger in Ms. Voorhis’ car, was seriously injured. Voorhis was driving in the wrong lane and speeding at the time of the crash and had a blood-alcohol level ranging from 0.302 to 0.321, four times the legal limit.
Assistant District Attorney Harold E. Johnson recommended that Ms. Voorhis be sentenced to 8 to 12 years on the manslaughter charge and to a concurrent term of 2-1/2 years in the House of Correction, with 6 months to be served, on a charge of driving negligently and while under the influence of alcohol and causing serious bodily injury. The prosecutor asked that the balance of the jail sentence be suspended with probation for 23 years and that conditions of probation include a drug and alcohol evaluation and treatment and an order prohibiting Ms. Voorhis from driving.
She was sentenced to 8 to 12 years in state prison. The sentence was in keeping with sentencing guidelines and was based on ‘the extreme nature of the defendant’s conduct.’
To my Canadian readers, 8 to 12 years imprisonment means that she must serve a minimum of 8 years but no more than 12 years.
An Oxon Hill, Maryland woman who injured 49 people when she plowed her car through a street festival while high on crack cocaine was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2007.
Tonya Bell apologized to the victims, many of whom testified how their broken bones, scars and psychological wounds from the June 2, 2007 incident have had a profound impact on their lives, limiting their ability to work or pursue their life passions.
Bell, pleaded guilty in October 2007 to multiple counts of aggravated assault while armed and assault with a dangerous weapon, along with a charge of cruelty to children. District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Herbert Dixon gave Bell the maximum sentence allowed under the plea agreement she reached with prosecutors.
According to prosecutors, Bell had gone on a crack binge in the 24 hours before the street festival, consuming $700 worth of the drug. She then placed her 7-year-old daughter in the back seat of her station wagon and headed toward Unifest, a church-sponsored street festival in southeast Washington, D.C.
At speeds of up to 70 mph, Bell made two passes through the area, knocking people to the side and under the car. A police officer who tried to pull her over said she was laughing as she drove. Her station wagon was finally stopped when officers crashed their scooters under the vehicle and a man jumped through the window to put the transmission in park.
Some of the injured described in court how they dragged for several blocks under the car or thrown into the air by the impact.
After eight criminal convictions, Bell appeared to have righted her life somewhat in 2004 when she was in a drug treatment program. However, she later became involved in an abusive relationship, which precipitated a drug relapse.
A crazy motorist who killed an elderly driver after he ignored doctors' warnings that illegal drugs could send him insane won a three-year cut in his sentence on December 13th, 2007.
Roderick Nigel Martin, 38, had been "floridly psychotic" after smoking cannabis, and stole a tip-truck to drive to Adelaide, Australia. Martin drove it for 50km down the wrong side of the Western Highway, pursued by police as he veered towards oncoming traffic.
But near Ballarat he ploughed into Raymond Turner's car, killing the 66-year-old.
In his madness, Martin thought aliens had invaded Earth, that he was the last human left, that other drivers had been taken over by aliens, and that the planet was about to collide with Mars.
The Supreme Court was told he had been admitted to hospital at least 15 times in South Australia and was repeatedly warned to stay off drugs because it caused his psychosis. A treating psychiatrist wrote to the SA Coroner's Department warning Martin was a significant public risk because he had shown a "reckless disregard" for medical advice.
Martin was charged with Mr. Turner's murder over the July 2003 accident. But a jury acquitted him, instead finding him guilty of manslaughter and four counts of reckless conduct endangering life. Justice Bernard Bongiorno said his crime was aggravated by his taking illegal drugs when he knew it would make him dangerously psychotic.
The jury was right in their decision that his crime was one of manslaughter and not murder. For him to be convicted of murder, it would have to be established that he intended to kill his victim.
He was sentenced in late 2005 to 14 years' jail with a minimum term of 10 years to be served before he could apply for parole.
Martin appealed against the validity of that conclusion, and argued his sentence was excessive.
But Court of Appeal president Chris Maxwell and justices Geoffrey Nettle and Robert Redlich ruled that Martin had known from past experience that he was likely to lose rational control while on drugs, and agreed with Justice Bongiorno that it was an aggravating factor. He wrote in his decision;
"In this sense, there is an important element of deliberateness or premeditation about the course of conduct on which the applicant embarked, which ultimately caused the death of an innocent man," they said.
But the judges also ruled that Martin's sentence was excessive when compared with similar cases of alcohol-affected drivers. They also gave he credit for his remorse and his early offer to plead guilty, and said he had not fully appreciated the true nature of his actions. Martin was re-sentenced to 11 years' jail with a minimum of eight years.
A woman, Sandra Maul, who blacked out behind the wheel and ran down two teenage boys 15 months ago was sentenced On February 28th 2008, to eight years in prison.
She agreed to plead guilty to two counts of vehicular manslaughter. If she hadn’t, she could have received a 12 year sentence at most.
Maul, 65, who had suffered from alcoholism, depression and drug addiction, was under the influence of three prescription medications on the afternoon of November 17, 2006 when she passed out behind the wheel. Her car, which was headed south on Federal Boulevard at a speed of roughly 30 mph, (48 km/h) jumped the curb and hit two boys from behind.
Jesse Aguirre and Nhan Nguyen, who were walking home from Lincoln High School that afternoon, were knocked out of their shoes, dragged 30 feet under the hood of Maul's SUV and then smashed into a tree near the intersection of Federal and Colorado Street. Both died as a result of their injuries.
With all those drugs on board, she had no business driving. The victims' families had different reactions to the sentence, which was too light for Samantha Nguyen, the victim's oldest sister who said. "It's just another stab in our back. By that, she meant that the court had stabbed them in the back.
Prior to the sentencing itself, Egelhoff heard emotional pleas from all three families that have been affected, or, as Nguyen said, "ruined" by the tragic accident.
Robert Maul, one of the defendant’s sons told the court. "But it wouldn't do any good to warehouse her in jail just to dole out some punishment."
I disagree. Severe punishment is intended to punish wrongdoers.
Dario Aguirre echoed his wife's call for a harsh sentence when he said, "She drove without caring about anyone. Now she has to deal with the consequences. It would be nice for everyone to have a second chance. My son did not have a second chance. My son just died. And it's all because of the carelessness of this woman."
Samantha Nguyen was even more angrier and turned and addressed Maul. "My brother laid in his coffin with his head sewn together because of you. His legs were broken everywhere."
The lives of those two boys came down to being worth only four years each for the inconvenience that that stupid woman had to pay while in prison.
On March 27th 2008, a Thornton, New Hampshire man, Joshua R. Sheppard, 27, was sentenced to three to 12 years in the New Hampshire State Prison and was stripped of his right to drive for 21 years after being convicted of three counts of negligent homicide. Shepard had been previously declared a habitual motor vehicle offender in March 2004 by the New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles. Shepard's motor vehicle record included prior accidents and convictions for reckless operation and leaving the scene of an accident. Approximately six months after Shepard got his license back in Dec. 2005, Shepard crashed into the four motorcyclists on June 11, 2006.
Joshua R. Shepard, 27, formerly of 885 Upper Mad River Road, was also ordered to pay more than $125,000 in restitution for allowing his car to stray over the center line, strike two motorcycles killing three people and severely injuring a fourth. Shepard was driving a purple 1995 Mercury Tracer east on Route 49. The motorcyclists were heading west. The speed limit in the area was 40 miles per hour, no one was speeding, had used alcohol or drugs and the weather was clear. For reasons unknown even to Shepard, he crossed the double yellow line into the path of the oncoming motorcyclists. Several of the victims suffered amputated limbs as a result of the impact. All of the motorcyclists were wearing helmets. Shepard also suffered serious injuries in the crash including a ruptured aorta and a shattered leg and shoulder. Doctors were able to surgically replace the torn heart valve, but Shepard is expected to need to have it replaced in the future.
Sheppard had remained jailed since a jury convicted him for negligent homicide as well as misdemeanor vehicular assault following a three-day trial in late November, 2007.
Motorcyclists Gary and Joyce Varden and Claudia Huffman who were vacationing from Indiana and attending Motorcycle Week, died in the June 11, 2006 crash in Thornton.
Grafton County Attorney Rick St. Hilaire said "The sentence handed down by the court shows that there are significant consequences when a motorist commits negligent homicide. The law makes sure that all of us can drive to pick up our kids, get to work, or take a Sunday drive without the threat of being injured or killed by an oncoming driver."
I don’t believe that serving a minimum of three years for killing three people on the road is what I would call significant consequences. What were significant consequences were the three people having their lives snuffed out by a terrible driver who was still permitted to drive on a public road.
Jerry Laramee of Winnipeg, Manitoba was never charged with impaired driving for an early morning crash that killed 24-year-old Melanie Friesen, but there is ample evidence to prove he had been drinking, a court heard on May 8th 2008.
Justice Deborah McCawley aid before sentencing the 40-year-old carpenter to three years in prison. "In my view, there is compelling and un-controverted evidence that Mr. Laramee was intoxicated at the time.”
Defence lawyer, Hymie Weinstein had argued Laramee drank just three beers at a friend's house the previous evening. Weinstein said Laramee was driving home the next morning when he became distracted while eating and drove through a red light.
Eating while one is driving is a distraction enough but coupled with the fact that he had also ingested three beers earlier compounds the problem.
The Court heard that Laramee ran a red light at the corner of Dugald Road and Beghin Avenue and broadsided Friesen's car about 7:30 a.m. He then walked away from the scene and turned himself in at the police station in Transcona, Manitoba that night.
Generally, motorists who flee the scene of an accident do so for one of three reasons. They are impaired, they are driving a stolen vehicle, they have drugs, stolen goods or weapons in the vehicle or they are wanted by the police. The court in this case was satisfied that the reason why this creep fled the scene was because he was impaired.
Since he fled the scene, no blood alcohol or impairment tests were done but employees at a McDonald's -- where Laramee had bought breakfast minutes before the crash -- testified at a preliminary hearing he smelled of alcohol, slurred his speech, and asked employees strange questions like "Do you like beer?" A witness at the crash scene said she saw Laramee pacing back and forth in a ditch, distraught and smelling of alcohol. Laramee was previously convicted of drunk driving in 1998.
In 2006, Florida lawmakers raised the charge of leaving the scene of a crash involving death from a second-degree felony to a first-degree felony. The maximum prison sentence increased from 15 to 30 years. In some aspect of such a sentence, a defendant could spend more time in prison than for the accident they caused that may have injured someone.
Judy Kirby was found guilty of murder for intentionally causing a head-on crash that killed six children and an adult. The verdict came May 10, 2001 after a 12-day trial in which 114 witnesses were called. On June 13th , she was sentenced to 215 years in prison. Now that is a severe punishment. With good behavior, she may get out in a hundred years from now.
Kirby, with four children in her 1989 Pontiac Firebird, entered Ind. 67 on March 25th, 2000, going in the wrong direction. Witnesses said Kirby appeared to make no attempt to stop or turn around after she ran southbound motorists off the highway. Other drivers scattered, but after nearly two miles Kirby's car ran head-on into a van driven by Thomas Reel of Martinsville.
The impact of the two vehicles on a divided highway was horrific. Emergency workers said later they had nightmares about the scene.
Killed in Kirby's car were three of her children -- Jacob, 5, Joney, 9, Jordan, 12 -- and Kirby's nephew, Jeremy Young, 10. The driver of the van, Thomas Reel, 40, died, as did his son Bradley, 13, and daughter, Jesica, 14.
On April 14, police arrested Judy Kirby and charged her with seven counts of murder, four felony counts of child neglect causing serious bodily injury and one count of aggravated battery.
Family members said Kirby had been suffering from depression, particularly since the birth of a child five months before the accident. On March 2, she was admitted to a hospital for treatment, but Kirby chose to leave before the scheduled three-day stay was over.
On March 6, 2001, Morgan Superior Court Judge Jane Spencer Craney ruled that the prosecution would not be allowed to present evidence that Kirby may have been involved in interstate drug trafficking. She did however allow the use of information about Kirby's hospitalization for depression.
The jury selection process for Kirby's murder trial began March 16th in Dearborn County. The trial began April 23rd, with Morgan Superior Court Judge Jane Spencer Craney presiding. Jurors were taken to view the site where the crash occurred.
During the trial witnesses described the carnage they saw at the scene. Even rescue workers were stunned by the extent of damage to the victims.
Kirby's ex-husband testified that she had told one of their sons she was going to commit suicide. Prosecutors told the jury Kirby was suicidal over a failing relationship with her ex-husband's brother. Other witnesses testified that Kirby feared being arrested on drug dealing charges. Prosecutors also brought in a medical expert who testified that Kirby's strange behavior before the crash would not have been the result of a thyroid disorder as her lawyer had claimed.
In his summation, Prosecutor Terry Iacoli used a dramatic pause lasting 87 seconds to illustrate how much time Kirby had to pull over after turning the wrong way. The case went to the jury, which deliberated ten hours that evening and the next morning before coming to a verdict of murder on all seven counts.
On August 22nd, 2008, Ingram Bakhsh, a habitual drunk driver, whose vehicle pushed a Rockwood, Ontario couple into the path of a GO train was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.
Andy and Nettie Miller, who were 66 and 65, were stopped at a level crossing in Milton on July 19, 2007, when Ingram Bakhsh struck the rear of their vehicle, forcing it onto the tracks. The Millers died instantly when the train hit their car. Bakhsh's car continued through the crossing and struck another vehicle on the opposite side of the tracks before it came to rest.
At the time of the crash, he was awaiting trial for two previous drunk-driving related incidents, including a collision with a tractor-trailer on Highway 401, and was prohibited from being behind the wheel of a vehicle and consuming alcohol under bail conditions. On the night of the collision, he had been driving at a high speed and had a breathalyzer reading almost four times the legal limit.
There are more of these kind of dangerous drivers I can write about but I will save them for a later essay. What I will do now is tell you about some Canadian cases where the prospect of very long sentences exists.
The first one deals with a drunk Diver in Slave Lake, Alberta who killed four people in a car crash that be brought about.
Raymond Yellowknee, 35, in 2006, was driving a stolen pickup that slammed into a car, killing Misty Chalifoux, 28, her daughters Trista, 9, and Larissa, 6, and her stepdaughter Michelle Lisk, 13.
In June, 2008, the prosecutor asked the judge to declare that Yellowknee was a dangerous offender. That classification has very serious consequences for anyone whom that declaration is made. To apply for that declaration requires the consent of the provincial attorney general. It is applied in cases where a convicted offender can be sentenced to ten years or more and is used where the victim has or the victims have suffered physical harm or death.
The Crown must establish that the offender has been convicted of a “serious personal injury offence”, which is defined in s. 752(b) of the Code to include all forms of crimes and second, the trial judge must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a “likelihood” that the offender will cause “injury, pain or other evil to other persons through his or her failure in the future to control his behavior” and will continue to be a risk to life, safety or physical or mental well-being of person that he or she may come upon.
A chronic bad driver with a history of drunk driving and hit-and-run who killed a man while speeding away from an earlier crash was put behind bars on July 13, 2001.
Gilles Cartier, 52, was sentenced to four years in prison after earlier pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing death, dangerous driving causing bodily harm, driving while disqualified and hit-and-run.
Cartier was also banned from driving for four years following his release and ordered to submit a sample of his DNA for the national DNA databank in Ottawa.
The deadly crash in north Edmonton happened on January 30th, 2006, about 3:10 p.m. Cartier was driving a 1994 Ford Aerostar minivan east on 134 Avenue near 113A Street when he struck an eastbound Honda Civic that was turning into a parking lot. Cartier then drove around the Honda Civic and fled the scene, accelerating rapidly along 134 Avenue with a civilian driver following him.
He continued speeding east along 134 Avenue and collided with a Toyota Tercel that had just proceeded north on 108 Street from a stop sign, court heard. The Tercel was struck on the driver's side door and pushed onto the curb by Cartier’s Aerostar, which police traffic investigators say was travelling at a minimum of 127 km/h in the 50-km/h zone. (79 mi/h and 31 mi/h)
Ahmad was driving the Tercel and was pronounced dead at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. His nephew, Farooq Jutt, 19, was in the front passenger seat, but was thrown to the rear in the collision. Jutt suffered a lacerated liver, a punctured lung, two cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and head injuries needing stitches and was in hospital two weeks.
According to Cartier's criminal record and driving abstract, he has four convictions for drunk driving, three for hit and run, one for criminal negligence and one prior entry for driving while disqualified. At the time of the fatal crash, police said Cartier had an outstanding warrant for driving without insurance and was a suspended driver. His licence plate was also stolen from another vehicle.
This criminal should never be permitted to drive again. He is a menace to society.
What follows is about one of the worst drivers you could ever have the misfortune to ever meet on a road.
Gloria O'Neill, who was still under a 10-year driving ban after killing a pedestrian, drove her Lincoln Continental in her Toronto neighbourhood on August 29th, 2008. Suspended multiple times, O'Neill has gotten around the law in the past by applying for multiple driver's licences under various legal names.
From her apartment in Toronto, overlooking a Ministry of Transportation driver's centre, Gloria O'Neill seems to mock the system that has tried to keep her off the road.
The Toronto woman has been involved in at least 15 collisions, often in rented or borrowed cars. Her licence was suspended as far back as 1978, at age 21. In 1984, it was suspended again. Still forbidden to drive, she got a new licence under a different name. When that was suspended, she got another one.
Five years ago, after she dragged a pedestrian to his death in a crosswalk, a court banned her from driving for 10 years. On May 27, 2002, Salvatore Visicale, 46, was running errands when he walked into the intersection at Wilson and Lexfield Aves. to pick up a yellow T-shirt from the middle of the crosswalk.
According to court documents, Gloria O'Neill, who lives near Keele St. and Rogers Rd., was driving a silver Mercedes Benz toward traffic stopped at a red light, two blocks east. She had borrowed the car from her landlord, telling him she needed to visit her daughter.
Witnesses were shocked when she pulled into a left-turn lane, drove through the red and down a hill on Wilson toward Lexfield.
Any reasonable motorist would have had ample time to spot Visicale in the crosswalk, experts in collision reconstruction testified. "He tried to jump out of the way," said Juan Carlos Molina, who saw the Mercedes strike Visicale, killing him instantly. He was dragged under her car for 26 metres. As bystanders rushed to help, she sped off at up to 100 km/h, nearly hitting another motorist head-on.
When O'Neill returned to the scene 10 minutes later at the urging of her landlord, police arrested her after learning she was out on bail for an outstanding fraud charge.
O'Neill was eventually found guilty of dangerous driving causing Visicale's death. She was also convicted of perjury for lying at her bail hearing about her criminal record and multiple suspensions.
Later when asked about the fatal crash in which she killed the pedestrian, she said, "I'm trying to get over it. I have a life and I'm trying to get on with it. I just want to live my life. Living a life is something she denied her victim.
Not long after, with five years left on her driving ban, O'Neill got behind the wheel of a Lincoln Continental registered to her husband. On August 28th, 2008, two Waterloo Region Record journalists watched as she drove the shiny red car out of her Toronto garage and disappeared down the street. She obviously doesn't give a damn.
Every year, thousands of people whose licences are suspended or revoked ignore that fact and drive.
In 2006 alone, suspended drivers caused more than 1,300 collisions in Ontario, killing at least three and injuring more than 600, an analysis by the Record of provincial collision data has found.
"A lot of these people are pretty devious," said former OPP Sgt. Cam Woolley. "They will just keep driving borrowed cars, buy junkers, switch licence plates, have no insurance. And they'll do it over and over again."
"Nothing, it seems, will prevent Ms. O'Neill from doing what she wants rather than what the law permits," said Justice Harry Laforme as he sentenced O'Neill to three years in prison and banned her from driving for 10 years. He noted her "history of dishonesty, the nature of her criminal activity and her insistence upon driving regardless of what the courts order."
He should have banned her from driving for life.
In March 2004, O'Neill was out on parole, after serving nine months at Grand Valley Institution. His means that her victim’s life was only worth nine months of incarceration to her.
O'Neill's case caused little public stir. She was one of nearly 140 drivers to kill a pedestrian that year.
Every day, police say, they catch people driving without valid licences, sometimes just minutes after turning their licences over to the courts. The OPP alone caught more than 5,800 banned drivers last year.
York Region police began Operation Disqualified in 2004 to monitor prohibited drivers, using court lists. This year alone, they caught 50 drivers under driving bans and 890 under suspension.
Despite the potential consequences – fines of up to $5,000, plus imprisonment up to 6 months if caught more than once – suspended drivers have proved to be predictable, usually driving their own cars to and from work.
These offenders probably think to themselves, “What are the odds that today is the day the cops are watching?" The odds are almost microscopic.
In Brampton, Ontario, when a defendant was ordered by the court not to drive his or her car for a certain period of time, some of these people would leave the court house, walk down the street and then get in their cars and drive away. The police following them, apprehended them and recharged them with driving while under suspension.
This woman was obviously a creep. Despite many tickets and court judgments, she had rarely paid a fine. She twice declared bankruptcy to escape thousands owed to creditors, including a vehicle leasing company.
Her licence was first suspended in 1978. It was suspended again six years later when she didn't pay a court judgment to the victim of a crash.
In 1995, according to parole documents, O'Neill rolled her car on Highway 401, breaking her back in two places. She was charged with driving while under suspension and got 15 days in jail.
At the time of the collision that killed Visicale, O'Neill was under two driving suspensions. One licence used the name Meyer, the other Cloutier – both real names at different points in her life.
She was able to apply for new licences using identification with old married or maiden names, Song recalled. Ministry records show O'Neill obtained a third driver's licence in the name O'Neill in June 1998. Then came more than a dozen accidents and eight convictions.
Four collisions involved rental cars. The last happened two weeks before the crash that killed Visicale.
In 2005, the Ontario auditor general issued a scathing report on gaps in the driver licensing system. Among other problems, gym membership cards were being used as identification to get licences, and people were showing up in the system with duplicate licences.
In a follow-up report last year, the auditor general said the ministry had "taken some action" on the recommendations," including limiting the types of ID deemed valid.
But it is still researching how to stop people from driving while suspended. And nearly five years after legislation was passed letting the province automatically check whether someone renewing a plate has valid insurance, it's still talking with insurers about how to do it.
It hopes to introduce technology that would compare photos of new applicants to those in the system to keep suspended drivers from getting a second licence.
I remember representing someone in traffic court and watching a trial while we waited for my client’s case to come up. The accused had his licence suspended for three years so he went to Florida and obtained a Florida driver’s licence and then returned to Ontario and began driving with that licence. When he was apprehended and brought to trial, the justice of the peace sentenced him to six months in jail. Licence suspension meant no driving at all on a public road or street, period.
One of my clients drove with a suspended licence. He was sentenced to jail for six months. I appealed the sentence on his behalf and the higher court recinded the jail time but awarded him with a $5,000 fine.
These people are not afraid of the consequences that come with driving with a suspended licence and if they get a really good lawyer they don't have to serve any time. I admit it’s disgusting, especially when they are killing people.
On November 13th, 2008, one of the country's top jockeys has been sentenced to two years less a day of house arrest after pleading guilty to drunk driving in a car crash that killed a 34-year-old music teacher.
David Clark, of Vaughan, who has earned more than $1 million in prizes this year, was sentenced in Newmarket. One of the exceptions to the house arrest is he can leave his home for employment.
After serving his term of house arrest, the 55-year-old jockey will then be placed on two years probation and will have to do 240 hours of community service. He also received a three-year driving prohibition. That's in addition to his licence being taken away at the time of the fatal crash.
In April Clark pleaded guilty to both impaired driving causing death and impaired driving causing bodily harm. According to court testimony, Clark had a blood-alcohol level over the legal level of .08. York police breathalyzer technicians estimated his blood alcohol level was between .120 and .170 at the time of the crash.
Suzanne Mizuno, 34, a music teacher and educational author, died in the crash on Huntington Rd., south of Major MacKenzie Dr. on May 16, 2006. She was on her way – with her brother Jamie in a Honda Civic – to a family dinner. Clark was travelling southbound that evening behind the wheel of a Nissan Maxima. According to police, the Maxima swerved into the oncoming lane.
Jamie Mizuno, the driver, tried to avoid the car, but it slammed into the passenger side of Mizuno's vehicle. Suzanne Mizuno was pronounced dead at the scene. Her brother and Clark were treated for minor injuries. In a victim impact statement earlier this year, Jamie Mizuno said: "To this day, I can hear her last words, as she screamed, `Look out!' We didn't get a chance to say goodbye. She left so fast."
Clark continued to ride as the charges against him made their way through the justice system. According to the Daily Racing Form, Clark has compiled a lifetime record of 2,758 wins from 19,140 mounts for earnings of approximately $75 million. This year he has had 53 winners from 470 mounts.
Now that the sentencing has taken place, Clark may face disciplinary action from the Ontario Racing Commission, the governing body that licenses jockeys. The ORC had been waiting until the courts ruled on the case before deciding to take any action. The ORC said it would be reviewing the status of Clark's licence now that he has been sentenced.
Imagine serving two years of house arrest for killing someone and at the same time, being able to earn a living. That is something he denied his victim.
In 2008, Milton resident Ingram Bakhsh was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in jail after he struck a couple's vehicle, forcing it onto train tracks. The couple were killed instantly when a train hit their car. Bakhsh had been driving at high speeds and had a breathalyzer reading almost four times the legal limit. He was already awaiting trial for two other incidents related to drunk driving.
In 2004, Shawn Hall was sentenced to five years in jail after striking and killing a man outside the Government nightclub on Queens Quay in 2002. Hall, who pleaded not guilty, was found with a blood alcohol level far above the legal limit. He had been previously convicted for exceeding the limit.
In 2005, Jeffrey Dressler was sentenced to 15 years in jail and banned from driving for life after he was convicted for the second time of causing death while being impaired. Dressler got behind the wheel of his car in the early morning of Nov. 27, 2004, after he had spent all night drinking at a strip club. On Hwy. 9, west of Newmarket, he crashed into Ion Mihaila's car, sending him into the path of a minivan and killing him. Dressler had previously served two years of a four-year prison term for a crash that killed his friend Barry Peterkin in 1996.
On April 28th, 2009, Matthew Junkert was led away in handcuffs to begin a five-year sentence for drunkenly running over and killing a Richmond Hill mother out for a jog.
Justice Peter Wright told a packed Newmarket courtroom as he passed sentence on Junkert, which included a 10-year driving ban; "Despite efforts made at every government and social level, in our schools and churches, the carnage and terrible injuries and tragic, senseless deaths continue almost unabated. Every year, drunk driving leaves a terrible trail of death and heartache.”
The sentence is one of the stiffest ever handed down by Ontario courts for a motorist with no previous record convicted in a vehicular death while driving drunk. Junkert showed no emotion during the hearing or as he was led away.
Wright found Junkert, 35, guilty in January in the November 2006 death of 37-year-old Terri Callaway. The Ontario Court of Justice heard that Junkert ran down Callaway from behind as she jogged on a sidewalk near her Oak Ridges home.
Defence lawyer, Martin Herman called the five-year sentence, which the Crown had requested, a little harsh. The death of her victim was harsher as is the agony of her family.
On July 13th, 2009, a Toronto man received a four-year prison sentence for killing a Mississauga taxi driver while impaired. Justice Irving Andre also banned Antoni Burianski, 31, from driving for 20 years in his judgment.
Mohammad Rao, 59, was on his way home when his taxi van was struck in a horrific crash on the westbound Queen Elizabeth Way in the early morning of Sept. 30, 2008. Rao was a husband, father of three and a grandfather of seven. He drove a taxi for more than 30 years.
Burianski, whose BMW wasn't insured, was given 20 months pre-trial credit. He was never granted bail and has remained in custody since the deadly crash that claimed the life of the long-time taxi driver.
Burianski must serve another two years and two months in a federal penitentiary.
Crown prosecutor Sean Doyle sought a five-year sentence. Defence lawyer Walter Fox asked for three years.
He pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing death.
James Aldridge, 25, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison today after he struck and killed Acting Sergeant Graham Elliott, 39, as he cycled to work in Melbourne's Australia north-west in July 2006.
Aldridge was driving at 10 km/h above the speed limit and on the wrong side of the road as he rounded a bend on Pascoe Vale Road at Strathmore. He had not used his brakes or slowed down when the front bumper of his car struck Sergeant Elliott, killing him almost instantly.
Just three months later, and while his licence was suspended, Aldridge was again caught speeding, doing 23 km/h over the limit.
Victorian County Court Judge Barbara Cotterell today ordered Aldridge, who pleaded guilty to one count of dangerous driving causing death, serve a minimum of one year in prison.
As Aldridge was led away from the dock after being sentenced, a member of his family wailed uncontrollably and shouted: "Where's the justice?" Yeah. Where is the justice that this dangerous driver only got to serve only thirty months in prison as a maximum?
Well, justice certainly showed its face in the next case.
Steven Warrichaiet, 40, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA, pleaded no contest in December, 2007 to charges of homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle, hit and run resulting in death, injury by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle and hit and run causing great bodily harm.
He was convicted of hitting two pedestrians while driving drunk and making it home with one of them lodged in his windshield. Authorities said he struck Tyrone Ware, 50, and Joann Carroll-Hildahl, 42, on the night of July 8 and then continued more than a mile to his home with Ware stuck in the windshield. Warrichaiet parked in the garage, called his sister and fell asleep on the couch, then awoke six hours later, discovered Ware's body and called 911. Carroll-Hildahl was left lying on the pavement after the accident. She is paralyzed and in a nursing home.
Warrichaiet's blood alcohol level was 0.18 about six hours after the crash, which was more than twice Wisconsin's legal limit for driving. He had been drinking heavily at a friend's home before trying to drive home.
On February 15th, 2008. he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Margarette Mitchell, the author of Gone With The Wind was hit by a speeding taxi cab on August 11, 1949. She was in the process of crossing the street with her husband, John Marsh, to see Canterbury Tales when the drunk cab driver hit her. She was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, where she died five days later. The drunk cab driver was sentenced to prison for forty years. He had a terrible background with respect to drunk driving offences. The judge must have decided that it was time to remove this menace off the roads permanently.
I personally think that anyone who has a previous conviction for drunk driving and then in another episode of drunk driving kills someone as a result of his drunk driving should get forty years in prison. I have no sympathy for anyone who denies humans the right to life because the driver drives his vehicle without any care or concern for the lives of others.
This raises an interesting rhetorical question. Should a drunk driver who kills someone because of his drunken driving be sent to prison for 40 years if his victim had terminal cancer and was expected to die within a month? I will leave that answering of that question to my readers.
An Alberta judge in Slave Lake ruled on June 13th, 2008 that a serial criminal who admitted to killing four people while driving drunk was not a dangerous offender.
Instead, Raymond Yellowknee, 35, was declared a long-term offender in a Slave Lake court yesterday and was facing a sentence of 20 years in jail; less four years credit for time served, plus 10 years of supervision after his release. He pleaded guilty to four counts of impaired driving causing death, as well as fleeing from police and driving while suspended.
Is a repeat drunk driver a dangerous offender?
A Quebec judge had to decide on September 9th, 2009 if a man with 18 convictions related to impaired driving was to get the designation usually reserved for killers and serial sex offenders.
The case concerns Quebecer Roger Walsh, who has 18 previous convictions related to impaired driving; just a few of his 114 convictions. He pleaded guilty to hit and run causing death after hitting Anee Khudaverdian, a mother who used a wheelchair, on her 47th birthday in October 2008. Walsh also pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing death, and violating a court order from a previous conviction that barred him from drinking.
Joseph Neuberger, a Toronto criminal defence lawyer who specializes in impaired driving cases, said Walsh is a "good candidate" for the severe designation. "With that many prior convictions, there's very little hope of curbing his alcoholism and his desire to drive while impaired."
This kind of issue has been before a court before. An Alberta judge in Slave Lake ruled on June 13th, 2008 that a serial criminal who admitted to killing four people while driving drunk was not a dangerous offender.
Instead, Raymond Yellowknee, 35, was declared a long-term offender in a Slave Lake court yesterday and was facing a sentence of 20 years in jail; less four years credit for time served, plus 10 years of supervision after his release. He pleaded guilty to four counts of impaired driving causing death, as well as fleeing from police and driving while suspended.
Let me explain what the difference is between a dangerous offender and a long-term offender and the consequences of being labeled with either designation.
Section 753 of the Canadian Criminal Code states;
Where, on an application made under this Part following the conviction of a person for an offence but before the offender is sentenced therefor, it is established to the satisfaction of the court,
(a) that the offence for which the offender has been convicted is a serious personal injury offence described in paragraph (a) of the definition of that expression in section 752 and the offender constitutes a threat to the life, safety or physical or mental well-being of other persons on the basis of evidence establishing,
(i) a pattern of repetitive behaviour by the offender, of which the offence for which he has been convicted forms a part, showing a failure to restrain his behaviour and a likelihood of his causing death or injury to other persons, or inflicting severe psychological damage on other persons, through failure in the future to restrain his behaviour,
(ii) a pattern of persistent aggressive behaviour by the offender, of which the offence for which he has been convicted forms a part, showing a substantial degree of indifference on the part of the offender respecting the reasonably foreseeable consequences to other persons of his behaviour, or
(iii) any behaviour by the offender, associated with the offence for which he has been convicted, that is of such a brutal nature as to compel the conclusion that his behaviour in the future is unlikely to be inhibited by normal standards of behavioral restraint.
The consequences of being declared as a dangerous offender are two-fold. First, the judge can order that he is to be incarcerated indefinitely until the authorities are satisfied that he is no longer a threat to others.
It would appear than anyone who is repeatedly driving a motor vehicle while his ability to drive is impaired would come under that kind of classification.
Second, the judge can classify the offender as a long-term offender. Since the sentencing objective in question is public protection, if a sentencing judge is satisfied that the sentencing options available under the long term offender provisions are sufficient to reduce the threat to the life, safety or physical or mental well being of other persons to an acceptable level, it can be used as an alternative if the sentencing judge cannot properly declare an offender dangerous and thereupon impose an indeterminate sentence, even if all the statutory criteria have been satisfied. The imposition of an indeterminate sentence is justifiable only insofar as it actually serves the objective of protecting society on a more permanent basis.
A person declared as a long-term offender is sentenced to a long term of imprisonment but the length of time is stated in respect to the length of the sentence to be served.
Roger Walsh, 57, pleaded guilty last December running down Anee Khudaverdian in October 2008 after a night of heavy drinking. The wheelchair-bound mother was out with her dog, on her 47th birthday.
He has 18 previous convictions for drunk driving and coupled with the fact that he drove his car even when his licence was suspended and that on one occasion, he killed someone is a clear indication that he is a very dangerous person to have in society. For this reason, Roger Walsh was facing the possibility of being declared as a dangerous offender.
On the other hand, Raymond Yellowknee wasn’t sentenced as a dangerous offender because he was believed to have only been driving one time as a drunk driver, notwithstanding the fact that he killed four persons in that one accident.
Because that one event resulted in the deaths of four persons which was deserving of a long term of imprisonment, he was declared as a ‘long-term offender’ which means that his sentence would not be an indefinite one but rather a definite one in which he would eventually be released when he served his sentence.
On September 9th, 2009, the Quebec judge hearing the case against Roger Walsh decided that he shouldn’t be sentenced as a dangerous offender. Quebec court judge Michel Mercier declared the man incorrigible and said he would be likely to re-offend.
But he did not hand prosecutors the legal prize they were hoping for: dangerous offender status for Walsh. The judge concluded that the designation, which has been reserved for the worst criminals, like murderers and serial rapists; did not apply in this case.
In practical terms, however, that sentence could wind up being just as harsh. He was sentenced to prison for life. Walsh would have had a chance, either way, to seek parole after seven years; the difference with dangerous offenders is that once they're freed they're monitored more strictly and, if they re-offend, they can then be locked up indefinitely.
In addition to the life sentence, Walsh was also sentenced to two years for the additional charges he faced; hit and run causing death and probation violations. Further, he won't be allowed behind the wheel of a car ever again in Canada or the United States.
This case was an interesting exception to my concerns slapping these offenders on the wrist. He actually gave a heavier sentence than what the crown had asked for.
The only sentence that is the heaviest sentence ever given to a drunk driver and carried out was given to a man is Peru who had a long list of drunk-driving convictions. Upon the last conviction, the judge immediate ordered that he was to be taken to the nearest lamp post and hanged. The police immediately took him out of the court room and hanged the man. The higher courts said that the judge didn’t have that authority to make such an order but despite that, the judge wasn’t fired.
The Sichuan Provincial Higher People’s Court in China sentenced a drunk driver to life imprisonment on September 7th 2009, revoking an earlier court’s death sentence. Li Jingquan, who drove while being drunk, left two dead and another injured on his way fleeing the scene of the accident he caused in Foshan City in Sept. 2006. Li was sentenced to death in 2007 in his first trial.
About 16,000 people are charged annually in Ontario with drinking and driving offences. Since January, 2009, nearly 2,000 impaired driving charges have been laid in Toronto alone; a handful involving repeat offenders.
Many people have been killed at the hands of drunk drivers, both violators and victims. It's our biggest problem. The courts can take away their privilege to drive and set that example on them, but without 24-7 monitoring, there's no way we can keep them off the roads unless they're behind bars or sentenced to house arrest with a monitoring device attached to his ankle.
In the United States during 1982, there were 26,173 persons killed in accidents caused by drunk drivers. From then on, the figures steadily were reduced so that by 2007, only 15,387 were killed that year. During that quarter century, as many as 475,207 died as a direct result of being killed in car accidents because drivers were impaired.
Now you know why I want heavy sentences given to these dangerous drivers on the roads.
PLEASE NOTE: http://www.duiattorney.org/?p=53 is a good blog to read if you want to know more about drunk drivers.
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