More than likely there wasn't a sidecar in the group, but before you say this isn't sidecar related, remember we are bikers as well. If this isn't fitting for the forum feel free to remove it. But not being there so not knowing absolutely who crossed the center line, this guy should not have been behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle. And it seems alcohol was involved on both sides. But this is still a lousy decision by the court. An injustice.
I agree, hard to believe that was the final outcome.
It sorta depends on how you define "an injustice".
In New Hampshire, the typical max sentence for vehicular negligent homicide is 7 years. If you pay attention to sentences and time served, you know that most 7 year convictions will end up with the guy being released much sooner than that. In this case, the driver has already been in jail for over 3 years so you could say that he has already served an amount of time that falls into the typical jail time for this crime in New Hampshire. Justice or injustice?
To me, where the concept of an injustice comes in is that the rules of evidence in New Hampshire disallowed the blood tests that the police did on the driver. By excluding the drug tests, a more severe sentence could not be handed down. Evidentiary rules have evolved over the last 50 years to help prevent prosecutorial and police misconduct and what we have today is what we have. Sometimes these rules prevent an injustice, and sometimes they don't.
The truly responsible party in this mess is the trucking company that hired this guy 2 days before the accident without doing a background check. If they had, he never would have been hired. But, if looking for justice, this is simple negligence by the trucking company, not criminal negligence. And the company has paid for its negligence -- its insurance company paid out the maximum amount of the coverage in place ($1 million) and then the company itself went bankrupt and is now defunct. In addition, the owners of the company were indicted under federal laws for falsifying records. So there's some justice in that.
Have owned 5 rigs but Rig #2 is my current one!
Today it seems like everybody more worry about the money then justice and we all end up paying for it one way or another. This is not going to make the roads any saver.
