According to the articles I found, she was convicted of "homicide and causing injury by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle." She ran down these riders at around 2 pm. (which is generally considered to be "daylight hours") after drinking "seven beers and two whiskey shots" at the tavern where she worked the morning shift. (This info is from http://www.twincities.com/ci_8303197) So she drank more alcohol than I ever have in my life -- even in my carefree student days at UW-Madison -- and got her blood alcohol level up to .0246%, got behind the wheel (I'm surprised she could figure out where to put the ignition key), and proceeded to run down three bicyclists.
Sometimes Wisconsin courts are amazingly forgiving when a motorist runs down a bicyclist (e.g. Jessica Bullen's death), but this case was just too blatant. If you do a Google News search on "drunk driving sentence killed wisconsin" you'll find several recent cases where drunk drivers killed pedestrians or passengers and got sentenced to 15 years or more in prison. Like it or not, our society expresses disapproval of serious antisocial acts by sentencing perpetrators to prison. To give this driver a pass -- just because all she did was hit a few bicyclists -- would send a *VERY* bad message. Eric Westhagen wrote: > 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 > > _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
