Dear Group, Conspicuously absent from the television news and the article just posted on Bikies was the actual sentence which warranted fifteen years from County Judge Karen Seifert? Was it vehicular manslaughter? Is this the new sentence for such a crime or is this the sentence for this crime? Certainly as a bike rider, I don't want to encourage autos in running down bikes, but the actual details have not been made clear. There is no excuse for an auto driver not seeing a bicycle, a walking person or a dog on a bridge during daylight hours. If she were talking on the phone, looking at children in the back seat or merely singing joyously, there should be no excuse for reckless driving.
I believe this case made all the television and print news because of the long sentence. As this article points out, three times the sentence expected was given. Certainly nobody wants Mrs. Burr behind the wheel anytime soon. She is now forty seven. When she is released, she will be collecting Social Security. That should sober up some would-be drunks like----say, our former Attorney General? But will it? Do we get confessions by torture, does it take fifteen years to "change habits" rather than five? Maybe fifteen years would be appropriate if we had an answer to such questions. What we do know is that her own family will probably become wards of the State. And the warehousing of Mrs. Burr will probably run twenty to fifty thousands or more per year. Have we ever handed out a fifteen year sentence for recklessly killing a person in or out of a motor vehicle on a roadway? I didn't hear any of that on the news. But, maybe I missed that? Eric Westhagen _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
