SPECIAL ISSUE: A Facilitator’s Reflections
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and killed her dog. The offender was driving to her friend’s house from her mother’s
home, less than a mile from the crash. It
was later revealed that the offender was
reading an incoming text message at or
around the time of the crash. Once this was
determined by law enforcement, she was
arrested and charged with Grossly Negligent Operation of a Motor Vehicle with
Serious Injury Resulting, a charge that can
result in a fifteen-year maximum sentence
and a $15,000 fine.
At the beginning of the trial, the defense
team argued that the victim was walking
in the same direction as traffic on a dark
road, with no sidewalk or shoulder, and was
wearing all dark clothing. They had hoped
to argue that the victim was intoxicated
(with a BAC of .99), but this was deemed
inadmissible. The state argued that the offender was texting with friends, as established by phone records, and was grossly
negligent. They argued that the offender
erased her text messages right after the accident (and, by the way, after dialing 911)
to cover up the fact that she was a distracted driver.
Halfway through the defense’s case, perhaps because the state’s evidence was
compelling and the defense’s case was
not materializing as planned, the offender
pleaded guilty to two counts—one of Neg-
ligent Operation and one of Grossly Negligent Operation with Serious Bodily Injury.
The offender was sentenced to thirty days
in jail and five months of in-home confinement, a five-year deferred probation sentence (with an underlying six to twelve
month sentence to serve if violated) and
five hundred hours of community service.
At least one hundred hours of the community service needed to “be served speaking
to high school students about the dangers
of texting while driving.” She was also directed to complete the “Community Reparation Program at the direction of, and full
satisfaction of, your probation officer.”
In a final statement to the court, the offender shared with the victim, “I would just
like to say I’m really sorry ... I wish I could
take all your pain away and I do wish I could
take your spot and give you your life back.
I never meant for any of this to happen.”
Outside of the courtroom, when addressing the media, the victim shared, “If your
car is on, turn your cellphone off.”
This is a story/case that is actively unfolding and will be documented elsewhere in
the not-too-distant future. Kate Brayton,
Director of the Essex Community Justice
Center, and I ended up co-facilitating a restorative justice conference that was a direct result of the “reparative condition”
noted above. The condition could have
been satisfied by an appearance by the
offender at a reparative board meeting,
which would then have established what
more mig