A baby died after an (off duty) officer crashed his Corvette at 94 mph, investigators say. He won’t face charges.

[ZiprHead]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...ashed-his-corvette-officer-wont-face-charges/

Investigators say an off-duty police officer was driving his orange Corvette 94 miles an hour, nearly twice the speed limit, when he collided with a family’s SUV two years ago.

The crash killed a 1-year-old girl, who went flying out of the vehicle, according to police. But Christopher Manuel of the Baton Rouge Police Department will face no criminal charges — not even for speeding, prosecutors said this week.

The news has drawn further scrutiny to the 2017 tragedy that stirred public outrage last year after authorities arrested the dead child’s mother, 21-year-old Brittany Stephens, on suspicion of negligent homicide, saying the baby probably would not have been ejected and killed if Stephens had properly secured the car seat. Authorities have decided not to charge her, East Baton Rouge district attorney Hillar Moore III said.

The choice to prosecute neither Manuel nor Stephens was an agonizing one, Moore told The Washington Post on Friday. But after two years of discussions, he said, prosecutors felt they couldn’t meet the burden of proof for homicide or even a lesser charge like negligent injury for the officer. At the same time, they were loath to go after a young woman whom Moore said has already “punished herself.”

“You never want any officer traveling 94 miles an hour,” he said. “It’s just stupid. It’s dangerous. But when we looked at the law and the facts and the circumstances, we just thought that this was the only reasonable decision to make.”

 

[Patooka]

I'm afraid to hear the rationalization of this from the usual suspects. The fact the prosecutors felt they were being merciful to the woman suggests to me a really fucked up institutional bias that need to be addressed.

For fucks sake, I bet you the insurance company was able to determine real fucking easy who was at fault for the collision. I can hazard a guess myself, and I'm not an assessor.

 

[Trausti]

Civil liability is different from criminal culpability.

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm afraid to hear the rationalization of this from the usual suspects. The fact the prosecutors felt they were being merciful to the woman suggests to me a really fucked up institutional bias that need to be addressed.

For fucks sake, I bet you the insurance company was able to determine real fucking easy who was at fault for the collision. I can hazard a guess myself, and I'm not an assessor.

What shocks me is that the usual suspects around the internet are already acting like the government can do no wrong in decisions like this, despite the fact that they are the ones also most slavering to dismantle the government.

 

[Politesse]

I'm afraid to hear the rationalization of this from the usual suspects. The fact the prosecutors felt they were being merciful to the woman suggests to me a really fucked up institutional bias that need to be addressed.

For fucks sake, I bet you the insurance company was able to determine real fucking easy who was at fault for the collision. I can hazard a guess myself, and I'm not an assessor.

What shocks me is that the usual suspects around the internet are already acting like the government can do no wrong in decisions like this, despite the fact that they are the ones also most slavering to dismantle the government.

That no police officer is ever culpable for harming a black person is one of their most sacred doctrines. It's not a law, it's a cult. If the officer were criminally charged, they would immediately turn on "the government" in an instant.

 

[Trausti]

It is not common for prosecutors to bring criminal charges in fatal auto accidents unless the driver was DUI. And with negligent homicide, the prosecution must prove proximate causation beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, one driver was speeding but had the right of way. The other driver failed to yield, was unlicensed, had too many people in the SUV, no one wearing seat belts, and did not properly restrain a toddler seat. Not surprising the prosecutor passed on negligent homicide charges against either driver.

 

[ZiprHead]

It is not common for prosecutors to bring criminal charges in fatal auto accidents unless the driver was DUI. And with negligent homicide, the prosecution must prove proximate causation beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, one driver was speeding but had the right of way. The other driver failed to yield, was unlicensed, had too many people in the SUV, no one wearing seat belts, and did not properly restrain a toddler seat. Not surprising the prosecutor passed on negligent homicide charges against either driver.

What the people in the SUV did was stupid. Anyone driving at almost double the 50 mph speed limit would get charged with reckless driving even if they never hit anyone.

 

[Trausti]

It is not common for prosecutors to bring criminal charges in fatal auto accidents unless the driver was DUI. And with negligent homicide, the prosecution must prove proximate causation beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, one driver was speeding but had the right of way. The other driver failed to yield, was unlicensed, had too many people in the SUV, no one wearing seat belts, and did not properly restrain a toddler seat. Not surprising the prosecutor passed on negligent homicide charges against either driver.

What the people in the SUV did was stupid. Anyone driving at almost double the 50 mph speed limit would get charged with reckless driving even if they never hit anyone.

That’s not negligent homicide any may only be an infraction.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is not common for prosecutors to bring criminal charges in fatal auto accidents unless the driver was DUI. And with negligent homicide, the prosecution must prove proximate causation beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, one driver was speeding but had the right of way. The other driver failed to yield, was unlicensed, had too many people in the SUV, no one wearing seat belts, and did not properly restrain a toddler seat. Not surprising the prosecutor passed on negligent homicide charges against either driver.

There must be some law that the officer broke in driving 94 MPH. I'm pretty certain I could get a ticket driving that fast without getting into an accident.

 

[Trausti]

It is not common for prosecutors to bring criminal charges in fatal auto accidents unless the driver was DUI. And with negligent homicide, the prosecution must prove proximate causation beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, one driver was speeding but had the right of way. The other driver failed to yield, was unlicensed, had too many people in the SUV, no one wearing seat belts, and did not properly restrain a toddler seat. Not surprising the prosecutor passed on negligent homicide charges against either driver.

There must be some law that the officer broke in driving 94 MPH. I'm pretty certain I could get a ticket driving that fast without getting into an accident.

For sure. He certainly broke the rules of the road. But so did the other driver.

 

[crazyfingers]

Reminds me of an incident about 10 years ago when an off duty Hancock Country Maine Sheriff's Deputy was driving his police car home after duty and going 100MPH on a 50MPH road. It was no emergency. He just wanted to get home. He crashed up his police car. Now in Maine, driving 30mph over the speed limit is a criminal offense. That he was driving 100mph in a 50mph zone was not in dispute. Who wants to guess if he was charged. Those who guess No are correct. What happened to him? He wasn't fired. All that happened was that he got put in the back of the line for a new car and got to drive an older car for a while.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Civil liability is different from criminal culpability.

Yup. Every so often a case like this makes the news where the police don't charge the driver when someone dies. When it involves an ordinary traffic offense (not reckless or DUI) the driver normally does not get charged--but they're still going to lose big in civil court.

Cops normally can't cite for traffic offenses they don't observe (other than in situations like the woman who hit me--in trying to blame me she actually admitted her wrongdoing and got a ticket.) Thus no speeding ticket even if the speed could be reconstructed.

The only unusual part here is that it was an officer driving.

 

[Politesse]

I think peace officers ought to be held to a higher standard than the average citizen. It's literally their job to make us all safer, not place us in mortal peril, and they are supposedly trained to do so. On our dollar, to boot.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Civil liability is different from criminal culpability.

Yup. Every so often a case like this makes the news where the police don't charge the driver when someone dies. When it involves an ordinary traffic offense (not reckless or DUI) the driver normally does not get charged--but they're still going to lose big in civil court.

Cops normally can't cite for traffic offenses they don't observe (other than in situations like the woman who hit me--in trying to blame me she actually admitted her wrongdoing and got a ticket.) Thus no speeding ticket even if the speed could be reconstructed.

The only unusual part here is that it was an officer driving.

Driving twice the speed limit is reckless.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Civil liability is different from criminal culpability.

Yup. Every so often a case like this makes the news where the police don't charge the driver when someone dies. When it involves an ordinary traffic offense (not reckless or DUI) the driver normally does not get charged--but they're still going to lose big in civil court.

Cops normally can't cite for traffic offenses they don't observe (other than in situations like the woman who hit me--in trying to blame me she actually admitted her wrongdoing and got a ticket.) Thus no speeding ticket even if the speed could be reconstructed.

The only unusual part here is that it was an officer driving.

Driving twice the speed limit is reckless.

The primary cause of the accident seems to be an improper turn, though, not the speed.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Driving twice the speed limit is reckless.

The primary cause of the accident seems to be an improper turn, though, not the speed.

I remember being in a situation once where I had plenty of time to turn because I hadn’t realized how fast the approaching car was speeding. It wasn’t terribly close to an accident, but closer than I want to have happen.

 

[ZiprHead]

Driving twice the speed limit is reckless.

The primary cause of the accident seems to be an improper turn, though, not the speed.

Would it have been an improper turn if the corvette driver wasn't driving at twice the speed limit?

No one expects a car more than a football field away to be of any consequence.

 

[Toni]

It is not common for prosecutors to bring criminal charges in fatal auto accidents unless the driver was DUI. And with negligent homicide, the prosecution must prove proximate causation beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, one driver was speeding but had the right of way. The other driver failed to yield, was unlicensed, had too many people in the SUV, no one wearing seat belts, and did not properly restrain a toddler seat. Not surprising the prosecutor passed on negligent homicide charges against either driver.

There must be some law that the officer broke in driving 94 MPH. I'm pretty certain I could get a ticket driving that fast without getting into an accident.

For sure. He certainly broke the rules of the road. But so did the other driver.

And he killed a baby. Sure, it was an accident but if he hadn't slammed his vehicle into the baby's mother's vehicle, the baby would still be alive. It is not at all certain that the baby would have survived the impact if secured in a car seat.

 

[Toni]

Driving twice the speed limit is reckless.

The primary cause of the accident seems to be an improper turn, though, not the speed.

Is there anything at all that a police officer, on or off duty, can do that you will say was wrong? At least twice on this forum you have spouted apologia for police officers killing children, once with firearms and now, an infant.

What, exactly does it take for you to believe a police officer to be guilty of a criminal offense?

 

[TSwizzle]

For sure. He certainly broke the rules of the road. But so did the other driver.

And then some.