DUI Court and the “Could have been”
January 9, 2007 by Laura | Trackback URI
We finally went to court today so The Daughter could testify against the drunk driver who hit her and my mother in August. He never showed up, but two hours later his lawyer did. The D.A. spoke to us and got as much testimony as she could, and we’ll be subpoenaed again when it gets rescheduled for trial. Absolute best case scenario is that this bozo will get probation and a $400 fine. He won’t even get his license pulled for a first offense. And they are not allowed to ask if he is here legally. Unlike his client, the lawyer at least spoke English.
What’s infuriating here is that this guy could have wiped out half my family. I know that we are not guaranteed a single moment of life. And in my family, we end conversations on the phone with “I love you,” and in person we add a hug to that. Life is too short and too uncertain to not show how much we care. But to know that things could have been so different - my mother and my daughter; my only child, could have been killed because some [expletive] is too stupid to call a friend or a cab or just sleep it off in the parking lot. That “could have been” just shakes me to the core.
Well… God is merciful. No one was hurt so bad they couldn’t recover. But I’m still angry at the weak sentencing which is the best case scenario, and the knowledge that he will probably get off with an even lighter sentence than that. Because next time, things could go differently.
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