[...] Prosecuting the victim, absolving the perpetrators [Transportation for America] The prosecution and conviction this week of Raquel Nelson – a metro Atlanta mother who lost [...]

This story disgusts me!  What kind of jury selection was that?!  she deserves a more fair trial.  So, what happened to the drunk and drugged out driver, who actually did kill the kid?

The injustice.  So what can we do?  How can anyone allow this women to get locked up?

Where is the ped Xing? 
Prosecute and convict the local DOT Chief, for failing to provide a safe way to cross the street from one bus stop to the other across the street.  

While I don’t agree with the mother being charged with vehicular homicide, to act like the mother deserves no blame is absurd. You can complain all you want about the lack of pedestrian friendly planning, but at the end of the day the mother chose to cross a busy 5 lane major road with traffic traveling at a high rate of speed while trying to keep track of her 3 children in the process because she couldn’t walk another half mile to a safe crossing. Sorry, but she deserves part of the blame for putting her children in that situation. As a father, I would take the time to walk the additional half mile to be sure my 3 year old crossed a major road safely. But hey, that’s just me being silly and being a responsible parent… heaven forbid parents be responsible and use common sense in this day and age. I know, it’s so politically incorrect to do so.

[...] My Friends Biobag – The Number 1 brand of 100% biodegradable bags, Patented and Proven! Great Skin My Host is Great backlinks —————————————— Resources – Free Link Exchange Mom Charged With Vehicular Homicide For Crossing Street After Kid Killed By Hit-and-Run Posted on July 19th, 2011 in Natural Health Ideas Image credit Transportation for America. [...]

[...] TreeHugger on 19/07/11 at 8:47 am Image credit Transportation for America. I have been trying to write something punchier than David Goldberg at Transportation for America [...]

[...] Charged With Vehicular Homicide For Crossing Street After Kid Killed By Hit-and-Run Image credit Transportation for America. I have been trying to write something punchier than David Goldberg at Transportation for America [...]

Is there a fund set up to help the family with legal costs?  I hope this gets appealed, and appealed.  What about the drunk and drugged driver- charged with anything?

And what would’ve stopped a drunk and drugged driver from plowing thru the “safe” crossing?  Or the child from darting off the sidewalk on that extra 1/2 mile trek TO the safe crossing?

If this story had any purpose other than getting readers angry, then there would be a productive link at the bottom of the article for people to write to absolve this woman. 

@twitter-14326028:disqus @ Carl, it’s not obvious to me that walking with a kid (or 3 kids) a mile along each side of that street would be safer than crossing it; there’s a median in the middle, so let’s assume 3 minutes wait at each point (after getting off the bus and again on the median) for a total time of roughly 8 minutes if she crosses by the bus stop.  I’d guess my 4 year old can walk a mile (half-mile up the street, half-mile down) in perhaps a half-hour, so adding a 3 minute wait, again, for the light at the “safe” crossing, we’ve got 4 times as much time near the street if I got off the bus and walked up and then down.  Assuming some non-zero chance of a 4-year old doing something dumb on a sidewalk, I don’t know that 8 minutes for a non-marked crossing is less safe than 33 minutes to walk to the light.
Also, per the blog description, Ms. Nelson had the option of walking to a “traffic signal.”  There are plenty of major roads in my town (much smaller than Atlanta and reasonably pedestrian friendly) that have traffic signals that I’d not consider safe to cross, period — e.g. because when the light is red (for oncoming traffic) it’s green for turning traffic, with no pedestrian crossing times when turning traffic is blocked.  That is, sure, Ms. Nelson could have walked to a traffic signal a half-mile up the road, but was *that* a safe place to cross?  I don’t think we have enough information to judge.

@twitter-14326028:disqus @ Carl, it’s not obvious to me that walking with a kid (or 3 kids) a mile along each side of that street would be safer than crossing it; there’s a median in the middle, so let’s assume 3 minutes wait at each point (after getting off the bus and again on the median) for a total time of roughly 8 minutes if she crosses by the bus stop.  I’d guess my 4 year old can walk a mile (half-mile up the street, half-mile down) in perhaps a half-hour, so adding a 3 minute wait, again, for the light at the “safe” crossing, we’ve got 4 times as much time near the street if I got off the bus and walked up and then down.  Assuming some non-zero chance of a 4-year old doing something dumb on a sidewalk, I don’t know that 8 minutes for a non-marked crossing is less safe than 33 minutes to walk to the light.
Also, per the blog description, Ms. Nelson had the option of walking to a “traffic signal.”  There are plenty of major roads in my town (much smaller than Atlanta and reasonably pedestrian friendly) that have traffic signals that I’d not consider safe to cross, period — e.g. because when the light is red (for oncoming traffic) it’s green for turning traffic, with no pedestrian crossing times when turning traffic is blocked.  That is, sure, Ms. Nelson could have walked to a traffic signal a half-mile up the road, but was *that* a safe place to cross?  I don’t think we have enough information to judge.

@twitter-14326028:disqus @ Carl, it’s not obvious to me that walking with a kid (or 3 kids) a mile along each side of that street would be safer than crossing it; there’s a median in the middle, so let’s assume 3 minutes wait at each point (after getting off the bus and again on the median) for a total time of roughly 8 minutes if she crosses by the bus stop.  I’d guess my 4 year old can walk a mile (half-mile up the street, half-mile down) in perhaps a half-hour, so adding a 3 minute wait, again, for the light at the “safe” crossing, we’ve got 4 times as much time near the street if I got off the bus and walked up and then down.  Assuming some non-zero chance of a 4-year old doing something dumb on a sidewalk, I don’t know that 8 minutes for a non-marked crossing is less safe than 33 minutes to walk to the light.
Also, per the blog description, Ms. Nelson had the option of walking to a “traffic signal.”  There are plenty of major roads in my town (much smaller than Atlanta and reasonably pedestrian friendly) that have traffic signals that I’d not consider safe to cross, period — e.g. because when the light is red (for oncoming traffic) it’s green for turning traffic, with no pedestrian crossing times when turning traffic is blocked.  That is, sure, Ms. Nelson could have walked to a traffic signal a half-mile up the road, but was *that* a safe place to cross?  I don’t think we have enough information to judge.

@3e7b9b498b0188e5856cc92ac9256543:disqus Two things to clarify: The decision has already been handed in by the judge, so there’s very little anyone can do with a letter or otherwise. The sentencing is coming in just a day or two. 

And second, I’d say that we do want readers to get angry. They should be angry that a chain of planners and leaders from local street engineers and councilmembers up to their Representatives has made it acceptable to design streets like this, failing to make our streets safe for pedestrians and force them to walk along and cross dangerous streets like this if they dare to leave the house without a car. We should all be angry about that.

So we should absolve the mother of any and all blame for putting her 3 children in danger by choosing to cross a major road in a dangerous manner rather than walking to the nearest safe crossing? I don’t agree with her being prosecuted for manslaughter.  But I also don’t agree with you trying to place all the blame on city planners.  There is a major lack of common sense in this country.  As a father of a 3 year old boy, I would choose to walk the additional half mile to cross at a safe location rather than trying to do so because I wanted to take the quickest way.  I know it’s politically incorrect to be a responsible parent, heaven forbid parents be responsible and use common sense.  Sorry.  The mother is partly to blame in this situation.  She put her children in a dangerous situation.  She had an alternative route that was safer.  She chose not to use it.  

Nope. We don’t have enough information to judge which is exactly what the author of this post is doing.  All we have is sensationalist reporting that is written in such a way to purposely rile up an audience consisting of people that want better public transportation systems.  The author is using this case as propaganda to promote their views on public transportation. The woman was convicted, obviously our legal system thought how she handled the situation put her children in danger and led to the death of one of her children.  I agree that the anguish and grief she feels is punishment enough and jail time is unnecessary, but to try and make excuses for her is just silly.  She made a mistake, she put her children in danger, and unfortunately her 4 year old paid the ultimate price.  Playing the race card and the “they don’t know what it’s like card” has been beaten to death.  Until we as a country start using common sense and taking responsibility for our actions, our society as a whole is going to continue going downhill.

Did he plow thru the “safe” crossing? Did the mother give her child a chance to go to the safe crossing? I’ll guess we’ll never know because the safer option wasn’t chosen in this situation so asking “What if” is pointless.

@twitter-14326028:disqus Our point isn’t that she was or wasn’t in some way at fault. Or that a planner should be hoisted up on charges instead. Our point is that the way we’ve designed and built these streets are “accidents” waiting to happen. Pedestrians are second class citizens, rarely with safe accommodation as a matter of course.

And we didn’t say she was to be absolved of all blame.

“Raquel Nelson probably made a mistake in following her fellow bus riders and trying to get home sooner. The driver made a series of errors, and was convicted of hit and run. But these are “accidents” waiting to happen, thanks to poor planning and dangerous designs.”
What parent wouldn’t, in hindsight, say that they’d gladly walk the extra half mile? But perhaps after years of waiting hours for infrequent buses, toting 3 kids along as a single parent, exhausted at the end of a long day, the answer changes. I think it’s disingenuous to say that you or I or anyone else in the exact same position would always do the same thing.

@twitter-14326028:disqus Our point isn’t that she was or wasn’t in some way at fault. Or that a planner should be hoisted up on charges instead. Our point is that the way we’ve designed and built these streets are “accidents” waiting to happen. Pedestrians are second class citizens, rarely with safe accommodation as a matter of course.

And we didn’t say she was to be absolved of all blame.

“Raquel Nelson probably made a mistake in following her fellow bus riders and trying to get home sooner. The driver made a series of errors, and was convicted of hit and run. But these are “accidents” waiting to happen, thanks to poor planning and dangerous designs.”
What parent wouldn’t, in hindsight, say that they’d gladly walk the extra half mile? But perhaps after years of waiting hours for infrequent buses, toting 3 kids along as a single parent, exhausted at the end of a long day, the answer changes. I think it’s disingenuous to say that you or I or anyone else in the exact same position would always do the same thing.

To expect her and the three kids to walk to the crossing a half mile away and then the half mile back is absolutely absurd. I doubt the kids could’ve even walked to the crossing, let alone back from it!  What’s her option then? Carry one kid at a time home, piggy-back style, hoping the others don’t get kidnapped from wherever they fell over exhausted?

Carl, I don’t believe you. I simply don’t believe that after taking two buses, shopping for groceries, waiting an hour and a half, all while having three children with you, that you wouldn’t follow the other riders across the street. I don’t believe that. Simply put, I think if you were in a state of exhaustion you would let your otherwise gold standard of parently lapse, as one does when exhausted. Please just contemplate that for a moment. Really put yourself in that scenario. I have no horse in this race and am disgusted by irresponsible parenting as much as you but I can see how this so easily could happen. The author is not standing in judgement. You are.

how often do you walk a half mile with your 3yo and two other kids next to a busy road?  if it’s not at least once per day, then I don’t think you understand the situation here.

Well, I’ve never before been to this blog but I do want better public transportation systems and safer, more walkable communities (and am happy to pay taxes to get them).  And yes, I think the US would be a much better place were it routinely true that one could safely reach bus stops routed in either direction from a given spot (i.e. if I hop off the bus on this side of the street I should be readily able to cross safely to the other side of the street without, e.g., having to walk a half mile).  My town recently installed divided crossings (a median with barriers and a flagged crosswalk) at a number of bus stop locations, something that would be an obvious (and cheap — heck, the median’s already there) improvement to this one.  

And I for one hope we’ll not stop discussing the ways in which people of different racial groups (etc.; I note age is also raised is this post) are disproportionately affected by different aspects of our society, unless of course that disproportionality itself disappears.  Nor do I think we should cease to respect (or discuss) the value the US founders recognized in the right to be judged by a jury of one’s peers (based on my admitttedly limited knowledge, personally, I’d be skeptical that in this case, it mattered whether the jurors were white or black, but would think that it would be appropriate for the jury to have both parents and bus users among its members).

True that crossing in an unsafe area is NOT SMART and she did take a risk. But isn’t the death of her child enough punishment? She has to go to jail too!? And the drunk guy who hit the child should be the one charged!

And she will pay for her choice for the rest of her life – knowing that if she had made a different choice it’s possible that her 4 year old would still be alive.

That’s punishment enough – no need to charge her with “vehicular homicide” and stick her in jail for 3 years when the drunk driver only served 6 months according to a source I saw on my way to this article.

I am sick to my stomach.

I am sick to my stomach.

I am sick to my stomach.

So it’s ok for a single mother to have a bunch of kids whom she could have refrained from having, then somehow it’s not her fault that she is burdened with feeding too many mouths(probably on taxpayer assistance) so she cannot afford a car and then not control them as they jaywalked(illegally) across a multi-laned highway, which anybody can understand is extremely unsafe for adults and small children alike..

She had that child, it was her responsibility.  this was no accident, this was a careless decision based on laziness to put her children in a harmful situation by running across a busy and dangerous road and not walking half a block to a crosswalk to cross with the signal with other responsible people.

She’s just as guilty as the driver in this case.

 Wow!, What a way to judge people!, I don’t know where it says that she was on assistance, so ..hey way to stereotype!. How do you know she’s not a widow? or that the Father just bailed on her? It’s people like you that make this world a really crappy place to live..go crawl back under your rock! Sheesh!!

KILL THE DA AND THE JUDGE   FIGHT BACK AGAINST THESE BASTARDS

 common sense is you don’t get a jury who aren’t someone’s peers to judge them.   In britain we learned that in the Magna Carta   Whatever happened to justice

 Carl is just a troll  best ignored

the article says that the driver of the car was arrested and convicted of hit and run.

I shouldn’t respond to the trolls, but I do have a question. Maybe some of you can answer it.

I’m not familiar with the Georgia traffic code, but from what I’m reading, this woman was crossing within the bounds of the law. Crossing at an unmarked intersection is legal… isn’t it? I’ve been googling the subject, and what I’ve found suggests (more than suggests, outright states) that it is… so how can people be condemning this woman for “crossing illegally” when she wasn’t? Or is there something I’m missing that makes this crossing illegal after all?

I shouldn’t respond to the trolls, but I do have a question. Maybe some of you can answer it.

I’m not familiar with the Georgia traffic code, but from what I’m reading, this woman was crossing within the bounds of the law. Crossing at an unmarked intersection is legal… isn’t it? I’ve been googling the subject, and what I’ve found suggests (more than suggests, outright states) that it is… so how can people be condemning this woman for “crossing illegally” when she wasn’t? Or is there something I’m missing that makes this crossing illegal after all?

Kidnappings by strangers aren’t really common… but darting into traffic is something highly possible.

(Also, most kids that age can make it at least half a mile. They shouldn’t have to walk a mile out of their way when tired and hungry, and I don’t fault the mother for choosing not to, not at all, but it’s reasonable to expect that a four year old child could walk half that distance if they had to.)

Have you ever walked HALF A MILE with young children?  Round trip is ONE MILE.  It’s impossible.  Accidents happen, this poor mother has been punished enough with the death of her child.  As a parent, have you ever crossed a street not at a crosswalk?  Tell the truth…and stop throwing stones at a grieving mother.

Do what? She broke the law. She should get locked up.

It’s much safer to cross at a crosswalk. That’s what they are there for. She was jay walking with her small children and now one of her children is dead because of it. To not put any blame on her is absolutely ridiculous. Obviously a drunk driver is breaking the law too. But who knows, maybe her child would be alive if she just walked that half mile to the cross walk. Maybe the drunk driver would have stopped at the traffic light. If the driver wasn’t drunk, would people still defend her? I see people of all ages and colors dangerously jay walk across roads all the time. This should not be an acceptable way to cross the road. People should be punished for this, if only to teach others not to do it. Or do you suppose you or your child need to get hit by a car in order to learn your lesson.

Wow, walking a mile with small children… sounds better than leaving one splattered on the pavement. And accidents do happen… but sometimes they can be avoided. She was irresponsible. I don’t understand why you defend somebody who is being a neglectful parent and putting her children in harms way.

Thank you!! I have been saying that all day! I think the driver needs to get more severe punishment than what he got… but come on now! She lives there, knows it’s not a safe place to cross but does it anyway… I got it, there should be a safe way to cross and they need increase pedestrian safety there… doesn’t change the fact that she was a reckless, irresponsible “mother”. I would never put my daughter in harms way like that.

From the article, it sounds as if the child ran out into the road while they were waiting for traffic to clear (don’t know how long the pedestrian signal is, but I know of plenty of wide roads where slower pedestrians need to wait in the middle on a traffic island for a second signal change to complete the crossing). Would it have made a difference if the child had darted out into traffic in front of the drunk driver at the crosswalk while waiting for the light (I’m assuming there was one there, the article doesn’t say) to change? If so, why?

In this case, it sounds like no one should be legally blamed. The child probably would have been run down even by a sober driver and the mother could just as easily have lost control of him at the crosswalk.

I feel for the mother. Maybe it is because I live in an area where the fairly well to do also take mass transit to work in NYC and live in an area where we have bus stops at a similar location as in the story. When my neighborhood was built the bus stop was on a fairly quiet 2 lane road and the bus stop at a full intersection. Today, the NJ Transit commuter bus, in the same location, picks up/leaves people on a 55MPH (in theory) divided roadway at stops where the nearest crosswalk is a 1/4 mile up the road. When I took the bus I never came close to having a car run into me while illegally crossing Rt 9 in the evening. Ironically, there were a few close calls in the crosswalks from drivers turning right & not paying attention (at least NJ has stepped up ticketing drivers like that). A real jury of her peers would have been fellow mass transit riders, no matter the race, parenting ability or income level. I also question what was not said in the article to make the prosecutor’s decision to charge her seem so mean spirited.

See additional bus stop directly across road.

“That’s right: Because Nelson did not lug her exhausted little ones three-tenths of a mile from the bus stop to a traffic signal in order to cross five lanes of traffic, she is guilty of vehicular homicide.”

It’s fun to watch people come to terms with reality.

“That’s right: Because Nelson did not lug her exhausted little ones three-tenths of a mile from the bus stop to a traffic signal in order to cross five lanes of traffic, she is guilty of vehicular homicide.”

It’s fun to watch people come to terms with reality.

Sure you would of…lair.

Of what I can see… she was NOT crossing at an intersection. If you look at the map, that is definitely not an intersection. And it isn’t even completely about legal versus not legal since someone else mentioned even without an intersection, cars are supposed to stop if someone enters the street safely. I don’t think it is fair to label someone as a troll just because they disagree with you. I agree entirely with Carl. She was reckless. She made a stupid and lazy decision (based off of what I have read about thus far and the amount of information I was actually able to obtain). This doesn’t change the driver needs to get more than the six months in prison he got or that there shouldn’t be more safety measures implemented. The only reason people like me throw out the fact that she was partially to blame is because so many people are ignoring the fact that she made a bad decision. Not just this site, but a lot of sites.

It wasn’t at an intersection, it was the middle of the road.  The bus stop isn’t near the intersection, so rather than walk to the closes intersection, she chose to cross where the bus stop was. 

What she did was wrong. She endangered her children.

 Because she is a fricken idiot. You might have to go a long ways to be safe, but its always worth it.

Shame on all of
Cobb county and the court system there.  This is one of the most absurd episodes I have ever heard of . 

What is wrong with the sitting Judge and the attorneys ?

Most of you seem not to have read that “over half a mile” was a round-trip figure from the bus stop to the crossing, and back to her home.  The article says it was 3/10ths of a mile to the crossing.  While I think that the planning was poor, and it was too far to have to walk from the bus stop, the mother definitely bears responsibility too.  Drunk driver or not, she took a huge risk crossing there with her kids.  To prosecute her and send her to jail is preposterous though- she’s certainly suffered enough, and “learned her lesson”, and to send her away would only punish her surviving children, who are doubless grieving too. 

The driver was not convicted of DUI.  Don’t you think they’d have thrown the book at him had he been legally drunk?  But they didn’t.  That tells me something.   But then, I took time to READ the article.  Guessing you read as far as “had 3 or 4 beers” and snapped to judgment.  So you’re about as  sensible as the jury who unfairly blamed the mother, aren’t you?

 You don’t think another 33 minutes was worth the safety of her child?  Wow…

 The article says that the driver was convicted of hit and RUN.  Maybe they didn’t catch him in time to determine if he was legally drunk.

 The article says that the driver was convicted of hit and RUN.  Maybe they didn’t catch him in time to determine if he was legally drunk.

[...] the mother doesn’t even own a car: The prosecution and conviction this week of Raquel Nelson – a metro Atlanta mother who lost her [...]

But she’s legally allowed to cross not at an intersection as well, according to what I’ve found.

So why are people saying she’s a criminal?

Some of these comments are ridiculous. It is silly to think she could easily drag (yes, after shopping and hoping buses you are dragging kids to keep them moving at this point) these kids another half-mile to a stoplight and then another half-mile to her home. Someone needs to find the definition of vehicular manslaughter in Georgia . . . even if you did find her guilty, wouldn’t it be negligence and not vehicular manslaughter? Yet Casey walks. Yep, that’s justice for you.

It’s incredibly sad that this woman lost one of her children. Many people are at fault here for various reasons and to various degree, but to make it sound here like she’s a total victim is ludicrous!  She made an incredibly poor choice that day.  Yes, it sucks that the alternative would have taken more time and effort that it was the safest and legal way to go.  You can’t absolve someone of their actions  because unfortunate circumstances caused someone to make a very poor choice.  Also, a jury should only be aloud to listen to the trial and only view physical evidence.  That way you can’t claim someone made a biased decision based on someones skin color.

It’s incredibly sad that this woman lost one of her children. Many people are at fault here for various reasons and to various degree, but to make it sound here like she’s a total victim is ludicrous!  She made an incredibly poor choice that day.  Yes, it sucks that the alternative would have taken more time and effort that it was the safest and legal way to go.  You can’t absolve someone of their actions  because unfortunate circumstances caused someone to make a very poor choice.  Also, a jury should only be aloud to listen to the trial and only view physical evidence.  That way you can’t claim someone made a biased decision based on someones skin color.

so a woman jaywalks across a 5 lane highway (illegal, dangerous, and stupid) with 3 kids in tow, including a 4 year old, and expects the 4 year old to play Frogger well enough to accomplish this? that woman should never see her (remaining) kids again until they turn 18 and choose to confront her about being a murderer.

Common sense is a collection of colliding concepts that allow us to justify any decision we make. They’re like aphorisms: “look before you leap” but also “the early bird gets the worm.” It covers everything, and you can use it to protect your smug sense of self-satisfaction, but you can’t use it to actually live a day to day life.
Saying “use common sense” is an AUTOMATIC indication that you don’t have enough information. I really suggest you learn about this important psychological concept that you (and all human beings) fall prey to everyday, which clouds their ability to see the world around them. Here’s a very accessible book to get started. http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Obvious-Once-Know-Answer/dp/0385531680/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311111862&sr=8-1

And please PLEASE stop saying “common sense” like it’s an easily-definable set of rules that anybody could easily follow.

Common sense is a collection of colliding concepts that allow us to justify any decision we make. They’re like aphorisms: “look before you leap” but also “the early bird gets the worm.” It covers everything, and you can use it to protect your smug sense of self-satisfaction, but you can’t use it to actually live a day to day life.
Saying “use common sense” is an AUTOMATIC indication that you don’t have enough information. I really suggest you learn about this important psychological concept that you (and all human beings) fall prey to everyday, which clouds their ability to see the world around them. Here’s a very accessible book to get started. http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Obvious-Once-Know-Answer/dp/0385531680/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311111862&sr=8-1

And please PLEASE stop saying “common sense” like it’s an easily-definable set of rules that anybody could easily follow.

The comments do not address the underlying problem. It is not a matter of who is at fault in this specific incident as much as what is being done about the problem wherever it exists. This incident is proof that there is a problem with the way transportation is planned.  The funding to fix these problems is being voted down. The ones voting against the funds are likely fine with that as the people affected will mostly not vote for them. Win Win for them.

@20d509d2ebaa529143811497da80dfcc:disqus  ”Yes,” a thousand times to this comment. Why are so many people in this same unfortunate situation all over the country every day? And what can we do about it?

seems very fair just being lazy killed this kid . its sad but who crosses a five lane highway with kids regardless of the situation. it was like poor people frogger and they lost a life big time

It is a matter of seeing through the BS and realizing what the “No” bunch have on their agenda. Look at the recent history in some states that are about to change them for better ( been in the news a lot) and what is going on in DC right now. lives are just fodder for the agenda.

Again, I ask, where is the proof that this is illegal? Because everything I have seen indicates that crossing at an intersection (and that’s what the picture shows, one street intersecting with another) is legal, and that it is usually legal in Georgia to cross in the middle of the street as well.

You must be so much fun at parties.

and now you have pulled the curtain on the reason the DA convicted the mother. 

I thought I’d repost this very informative comment from Sally Flocks, who heads up a pedestrian advocacy group in Atlanta (PEDS) and was quoted in the AJC story as well. She left this comment on Maria Saporta’s post about the incident. Saporta is a former Atlanta Journal Constitution business editor and writer: 

http://saportareport.com/blog/2011/07/hard-to-believe-a-pedestrian-gets-convicted-of-vehicular-homicide/“Sally Flocks5 pts
In the section of Austell Road approaching Austell Circle, where the bus stop was located, a left turn lane increased the width of the four-lane divided highway to five lanes. It also narrowed the median to just 3 feet. On the evening of the crash, everyone who exited the bus made it to the median safely.I visited the crash location prior to Raquel Nelson’s trial. The bus stop where she and her children attempted to cross the street when her child was killed is located three-tenths of a mile from the nearest crosswalk, the equivalent of three city blocks. It is unreasonable to expect pedestrians to walk 1500 feet to cross the street.
If the bus stop had been located just 140 feet to the north, the family would have been standing on a 16 foot wide median as it waited for a safe gap in southbound traffic. This would have given Raquel Nelson a much better chance of controlling her 4-year old child as they waited to cross. In addition, the final leg of their crossing would have been two lanes instead of three. When Mr. Guy’s vehicle plowed into the child, he was in the lane closest to the sidewalk. If the bus stop had been located properly, the child probably would have made it to the sidewalk by the time Mr. Guy sped by.At the trial, the prosecutor defined “reckless conduct” as a gross deviation from what a reasonable person would do. Since everyone who exited the bus crossed at the same location as Raquel Nelson, her decision to cross their did not deviate from what reasonable people would do. Wasn’t it more reckless for CCT to have located the bus stop at a location with a 3 foot wide median when a 16 foot wide median was available so close to the apartment building?”

This comment has been deleted by the moderator. Make a substantial comment and not sarcastic one liners if you want them to appear, please.

My advice to the mother:
1. Wait for your husband to return from work to help you with the children.2. If you feel you must cross a busy street illegally as a lone adult with small children, please limit yourself to two children. Here’s a hint: you only have two hands. A husband can supply two more hands. 

both insane and tragic

both insane and tragic

In the state of Georgia, vehicular homicide is more properly known as homicide by vehicle. It is defined, by statute, as the unlawful killing of another person using a vehicle. To be guilty of the offense, the perpetrator does not have to have an intent to kill, malice aforethought, or premeditation.[6]There are two degrees of vehicular homicide:First degree homicide by vehicleThis is a felony, that upon conviction will result in a sentence of between 3 and 15 years of imprisonment (or between 5 and 20 years for habitual violators), with no parole for at least 1 year. A homicide is first degree homicide by vehicle if the driver “unlawfully met or overtook a school bus; unlawfully failed to stop after a collision; was driving recklessly; was driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs; failed to stop for, or otherwise was attempting to flee from a law enforcement officer; or had previously been declared a habitual violator”.[6]Second degree homicide by vehicleThis is a misdemeanor, that upon conviction will result in a sentence of up to 1 year (which may be suspended) or a fine of up to US$1,000 (or both). Second degree homicide by vehicle encompasses all other homicides by vehicle, involving any other violation of the laws governing motor vehicles, that are not classed as first degree homicides.[

I am going with the we may not know the whole story it is hard to believe this is all of it.If it is true it is outrageous.Unless this lady pushed her kid into the car She has lost more than some stupid jurors on a court could give her looks like they like to pour salt in wounds.

[...] Most interesting is the transportation angle of this story. Transportation for America’s David Goldberg posted a scathing indictment of the whole farce. [...]

And sent to jail for six months. It was not his first impaired driving offense.

Those in sympathy with this woman might consider signing the petition to the GA governor:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/669/545/347/

And sent to jail for six months. It was not his first impaired driving offense.

Those in sympathy with this woman might consider signing the petition to the GA governor:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/669/545/347/

She chose not to cross at a crosswalk, she chose to jaywalk rather than walk to the nearest crosswalk.  Because of those choices her kid died. She is just as culpable as the driver.  
That being said, a crosswalk doesn’t guarantee physical protection from a car, I can attest to that, however it does put you in the right in the eyes of the law.  10 minutes worth of walking and she could have avoided the mess she is in.  

A half mile each way makes it one mile trip in total.  When was the last time you walked a mile with 3 kids and a bunch of grocery bags?

 yeah, you would walk an extra HALF mile with 3 kids.  Please.  This mother was tired, hot, beat down and screwed.  She could be in jail longer than the killer. 

Another anonymous virtual tough guy.

if it takes your child 33 minutes to walk 3/10 of a mile with you there is a health issue

if it takes your child 33 minutes to walk 3/10 of a mile with you there is a health issue

0.3 miles is too far to walk? I find it amazing that you are complaining about that short distance. It is a high speed highway, which is not legal or possible if you put a stoplight every tenth of a mile. The school districts here only run buses if you live more than a mile from the school, which applies for elementary school. And you think the 0.6 miles round trip is too far to walk? That she chose to bet lives to save that few minutes of walking is disgusting and ridiculous, and if you think 0.3 miles to the crosswalk is too far, maybe you should get out of your chair and go do some walking yourself.

 How can this have been rescinded!? Someone needs to find that woman, take her other two kids away, and lock her up where she belongs! Her recklessness killed that kid and ruined the driver’s life to boot!

[...] isn’t mentioned in Skenazy’s account (although a link to this piece by David Goldberg is provided) is that the bereaved mother, Raquel Nelson, is African American. Goldberg asserts that, by [...]

For all the people who believe the mother was reckless and endangered her children… I challenge you to the following:

Only use active and/or public transport for at least one month and do so in all weather conditions and different times of day/night e.g. work, shopping, leisure, medical;

Travel to or research other countries – there are different ways of doing things.

It is worth examining Denmark, Germany, Sweden where there is an assumption that people rather than cars on roads come first.  It is expected thatpedestrians, cyclists and motorvehicle drivers make mistakes.  It is also assumed that children will run out into roads at times.  These countries plan for unpredictability so if a bad decision is made, there is greater scope for everyone in the situation to respond without the type of calamity experienced by this family e.g. drivers being aware of pedestrians and the possibility someone might run out, driving slower…
 
Do you believe that roads and the ability to drive places fast is more
important than being able to use the streets comfortably as a
pedestrian?

Do you drive places because you are time poor and want to get places fast? Have you ever done anything wrong as a driver by accident or to save time? If so, why would pedestrians be different?

Reflect on decisions you made that you think were poor judgements on your part.  Will you ever make a bad decision again in any aspect of your life? Is there always one right answer?

Question your assumptions: Do ‘good’ parents/guardians walk an unreasonable distance out of their way to cross the road when it is likely their children will not do the same thing when they are older and go places on their own? 

Or do ‘good’ parents/guardians expose their children to a variety of traffic situations to build knowledge and skills so children have a library of experiences to rely upon when assessing safe areas and times to cross?

My mum would have been labeled a bad mom, but I can cross all types of roads and cycle on roads in all sorts of environments (rural, suburban, urban) in many different poor and rich countries.

Convicted by a redneck jury of trying to live while Black.
I’m a white guy and, this PIZZES me off.
They would NOT would NOT have done this to a white person.

I live about a mile from the scene of the accident and have driven on this road thousands of times. There’s no place for pedestrians to cross safely even at the nearest traffic lights. I thought at the time that she was crazy to even try, but what other option did she have? Not much. I’m appalled that she’s being punished for it– losing the child was punishment enough. That being said, it’s also true that Cobb Co Transit is almost useless. It’s an ordeal to get anywhere without a car. The few times my car was in the shop and I checked out riding the bus, I found that it would take over 2 hrs to go 6 miles. I’ve often driven coworkers home so they didn’t have to take the bus.And there are people crossing Austell Rd and nearby S.Cobb Dr between the lights–sometimes as close as yards from the crosswalks– day and night, mostly young Hispanic or Afro-American men but also women with strollers and children of all races and ethnicities. Austell Rd and this part of S.Cobb Dr were expanded from 2-lane country roads to 4-5-6 lanes about 20 years ago, but it was only 10 yrs ago (or so) that sidewalks were added! There are an astonishing number of taxies but the lack of a good mass-transit system is what’s criminal. On the other hand you have people who recklessly cross these major roads regardless of traffic. This poor woman was only doing what everybody does and was fatally unlucky. But this is not the rich part of the county. This is the we-nearly-got-taken-over- by-MS13 part of the county, right next to Lockheed and Dobbins Air Force Base, which is too noisy for the rich folks.

It’s easy to point out how the jury is different from the defendant because the only person exactly like you is YOU.

But the jury’s job isn’t to understand that the defendant feels bad, nor to understand what it’s like to miss your bus, lead your kids across five lanes of traffic, etc. The jury’s job is to decide whether the facts of the case as presented at the trial amount to a violation of the law that the accused is charged with violating. And that has nothing to do with how similar the jury is to them, or to me, or you, or Rupert Murdoch (who, when they finally haul his sorry arse into court, will most likely not get a jury of of scandal-mongering billionaires, either).

It doesn’t matter if the jury knows how she feels or doesn’t. It doesn’t matter if the jury is exactly like her or diametrically opposite. What matters is what she did, what the law says, and how that law applies to the situation. The similarity of the jurors to the person whose case they are deciding doesn’t come into that anywhere.

Back when a bunch of disgruntled barons shook down King John for more independence from the royal whim (which is essentially what happened at Runnymede) the idea of “a jury of peers” didn’t mean people identical to the accused. The whole idea was that the nobles couldn’t be dispossessed of their land, jailed, etc., by royal command without the say-so of a bunch of other nobles; by extension, commoners were granted similar rights to a jury of commoners. We don’t even HAVE an aristocracy here — we’re all commoners. Or maybe all aristocrats, since no lords, great or petty, have the right of high and low justice over us. But in any event, our peers are each other — all of us, not just those of us who look the same, or earn the same, or went to the same schools, or are otherwise identical in some way.

If you’re called for jury duty and the defendant turns out to be Rupert Murdoch, could you decide fairly on the law and whether it applies to what he and his organization did? So why should it be any different for anyone else? The law isn’t different because you’re a rich media mogul or a poor single mother, and it’s the law that is supposed to be the deciding factor, not whether the jurors are sympathetic to the defendant or not.

I don’t know that particular law in that particular jurisdiction, but if the law says that doing X is crime Y, the duty of the jurors is to determine whether the defendant really did X. That’s where it starts and ends.

Same way they can “allow” anyone else who broke the law to get locked up.

You can ask what would have stopped a terrorist from blowing up the bus, too, if you want to go for hypotheticals. But the question in this case is whether the person who was responsible for those children decided to take them to a marked crossing because it was safer for them, or whether she decided to haul them across five lanes of traffic because it was convenient for her.

Is the law different for parents?

Is the law different for bus users?

The jury’s job is not to understand how the defendant feels; the jury’s job is to determine whether the defendant’s actions were in violation of the law or not. It doesn’t matter whether they ride buses or chauffeured limousines; it matters that the law says “XYZ” is illegal, and whether or not the defendant did XYZ.

Is the law different for parents?

Is the law different for bus users?

The jury’s job is not to understand how the defendant feels; the jury’s job is to determine whether the defendant’s actions were in violation of the law or not. It doesn’t matter whether they ride buses or chauffeured limousines; it matters that the law says “XYZ” is illegal, and whether or not the defendant did XYZ.

So people whose children die because of their actions should be exempt from punishment? Where do we draw the line? “Well, sure, I drowned my kid, but that should be punishment enough….”

So people whose children die because of their actions should be exempt from punishment? Where do we draw the line? “Well, sure, I drowned my kid, but that should be punishment enough….”

I have 3 kids, 7, 8 and 2.  My husband is a weldor and often works out of state.  Fortunately, we live in the country and I have the ability and the good fortune to have a car.  I have walked with 3 children, the two oldest holding hands with each other and me holding one of them and one of the 2 y/o.  they are kids, they can break free, they can do stupid things, but the fact that you think you know better is BS.  I feel so badly for this poor mother, lack of judgement is one thing, but that is a moral issue, not a legal one.  In most states vehicular manslaughter requires that one be driving a vehicle.

She wasn’t crossing at an intersection.

Except the article isn’t about the underlying problem. The article is about what a horrible travesty of justice it is that the person who chose to risk her children’s lives should be prosecuted when she lost her bet and a child died. I agree, mass transit planning in Georgia sucks. But this is not the way to prove it.

So, um, why couldn’t she have walked 140 feet to the north, then?

Why did she have to cross THERE, not in a safer place?

So you’re saying that ‘good’ parents deliberately do unsafe things, such as running across five lanes of fast-moving traffic with a 4-year-old, so that the kids will grow up knowing how to jaywalk? Seriously?

Google “Jury nullification”. If a juror feels that the law is being unjustly applied, they have a de facto right to vote “not guilty”. 

[...] credit Transportation for America. I have been trying to write something punchier than David Goldberg at Transportation for America [...]

Atlanta Pedestrian-Vehicle right-of-way rules/regs:

 http://peds.org/resources/pedestrian_right_of_way/

All your comments about this sad case are reasonable, but she is still guilty of vehicular homicide. In that situation that actually existed, anybody with an ounce of sense would have known that it was very dangerous to cross there with three children. (Of course the perp being black has nothing whatever to do with the rights and wrongs of the matter.)

All your comments about this sad case are reasonable, but she is still guilty of vehicular homicide. In that situation that actually existed, anybody with an ounce of sense would have known that it was very dangerous to cross there with three children. (Of course the perp being black has nothing whatever to do with the rights and wrongs of the matter.)

All your comments about this sad case are reasonable, but she is still guilty of vehicular homicide. In that situation that actually existed, anybody with an ounce of sense would have known that it was very dangerous to cross there with three children. (Of course the perp being black has nothing whatever to do with the rights and wrongs of the matter.)

What other option did she have? How about, shopping somewhere else? How about, getting a neighbor to take care of her children while she went shopping?

What other option did she have? How about, shopping somewhere else? How about, getting a neighbor to take care of her children while she went shopping?

What other option did she have? How about, shopping somewhere else? How about, getting a neighbor to take care of her children while she went shopping?

I am sorry man and what i am about to say will make you mad. I agree she is a mother her job is to protect those kids. She made a choice to not walk the three tenths of a mile to a cross walk were her kid would have been safe to cross the street. I see it every day kids, adults and parents with kids jay walking right in front of my truck! Shit is crazy, I truly believe that if you KNOWINGLY walk across a busy street outside of a cross walk and is hit and killed the driver should not be liable. That person made a decision to take a risk and payed the price. This lady is mother who put her kids in danger, and she paid the ultimate price. I want to make this very clear, I feel very sorry for her that she lost her child and more then likely feels responsible for that lose. But I completely agree with the charges and conviction. She put her kids in danger bottom line and she is just as responsible for her child’s death as if she had killed them her self. 

Actually I think the prosecutor and the jury  was right on this one. As the adult she should have been responsible and reasonably forseen that there would be an accident. The fact that she was working class does not exonerate her.

Actually I think the prosecutor and the jury  was right on this one. As the adult she should have been responsible and reasonably forseen that there would be an accident. The fact that she was working class does not exonerate her.

I find the whole ‘illegal’ part to be strange too. In Australia you are only jay walking if you cross a street on an angle (ie. don’t walk straight across) or if you cross within 100 metres of a pedestrian crossing/lights – there is certainly no crime involved in crossing a street (unless its a no pedestrian freeway).  Also our laws are clear Pedestrians have Right of Way!  Even if they are jay walking a car still must slow down or stop for them.

“They had never taken two buses to go grocery shopping at Wal-Mart with three kids in tow. They had never missed a transfer on the way home that caused them to wait a full hour-and-a-half with tired and hungry kids for the next bus. They had never been let off at a bus stop on a five-lane speedway” how the hell do YOU know what these people have done in their lives? that is racist you prick, goldberg

I would have done the exact same thing she did: tried to cross right there. It’s probably something she’s done a couple hundred times before, safely. Everyone I know would have tried to cross there. I don’t know *anyone* who would walk to the crosswalk.  

Ms. Nelson wasn’t committing a crime when she crossed the street. Therefore, she cannot be legally, or justly, held negligent. Further, this prosecution, and the immoral notion that she is morally at fault, wouldn’t even occur if she were white and had a better income. The only thing left to explain her condemnation is bigotry and racism.

How can she be convicted of vehicular homicide? Unless she paid/talked with the drunk to come hit her kid with a car? That doesn’t make any sense. She made a mistake in trying to cross illegally and should pay a fine for jay walking however the hit and run driver is the one who killed a child. At the *least* he should *also* be charged for vehicular homicide.

Just because everyone decides to break the law, that doesn’t mean it should be forgiven.  Lesson learned: do it right, or bad things happen.

This is the very definition of “injustice”! What happened to the drunken, drugged a$$hat that actually killed the child? Did they get charged and convicted of vehicular homicide among other offenses? How is it legal for that person to even own a car after multiple hit and run offenses?

This is the very definition of “injustice”! What happened to the drunken, drugged a$$hat that actually killed the child? Did they get charged and convicted of vehicular homicide among other offenses? How is it legal for that person to even own a car after multiple hit and run offenses?

[...] Atlanta-Area Prosecutors Load Blame on Mother Whose Child Was Killed by Driver (T4America) [...]

This site is about how dangerous the poor planning of traffic and public transportation is and the body count that results from that. Look at the right side of the page.

This site is about how dangerous the poor planning of traffic and public transportation is and the body count that results from that. Look at the right side of the page.

This site is about how dangerous the poor planning of traffic and public transportation is and the body count that results from that. Look at the right side of the page.

the only law she broke was jaywalking and should be charged accordingly.the drunk driver that killed the child should do hard time for manslaughter.

The jury system was put into place so that the citizens would be judged by others like themselves. It has a lot to do with the law, of course, but more to do with how a reasonable person that is similar to the defendant would interpret that law and act or behave in response to that law. The question is, “would a reasonable and prudent person, who is like the defendant, understand the law in this particular way or behave in that particular way under the same circumstances’. Though ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, there are a lot of gray areas that have to be judged in context. It can not be considered in context unless the individuals involved in judging have the same point of view and experiences.
 Don’t be so quick to judge someone else living a life you have no understanding of.

The jury system was put into place so that the citizens would be judged by others like themselves. It has a lot to do with the law, of course, but more to do with how a reasonable person that is similar to the defendant would interpret that law and act or behave in response to that law. The question is, “would a reasonable and prudent person, who is like the defendant, understand the law in this particular way or behave in that particular way under the same circumstances’. Though ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, there are a lot of gray areas that have to be judged in context. It can not be considered in context unless the individuals involved in judging have the same point of view and experiences.
 Don’t be so quick to judge someone else living a life you have no understanding of.

The jury system was put into place so that the citizens would be judged by others like themselves. It has a lot to do with the law, of course, but more to do with how a reasonable person that is similar to the defendant would interpret that law and act or behave in response to that law. The question is, “would a reasonable and prudent person, who is like the defendant, understand the law in this particular way or behave in that particular way under the same circumstances’. Though ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, there are a lot of gray areas that have to be judged in context. It can not be considered in context unless the individuals involved in judging have the same point of view and experiences.
 Don’t be so quick to judge someone else living a life you have no understanding of.

Mr. Goldberg,  I understand that you advocate that middle class whites should not serve as jurors for African-Americans.  So I gather that you also advocate that African-American’s should not serve as jurors for middle class whites?  Really?

Mr. Goldberg,  I understand that you advocate that middle class whites should not serve as jurors for African-Americans.  So I gather that you also advocate that African-American’s should not serve as jurors for middle class whites?  Really?

I’m not completely familiar with Georgia law (I’m across the river) but I would assume that she was convicted of vehicular homicide because a) her actions caused a death (the child’s0, and b) a vehicle was involved in the death (even though it was someone else’s). There are certainly other situations which would clearly be vehicular homicide even though the person was not driving — for instance, if a passenger grabs a driver’s arm and he hits someone as a result. The bottom line is that if that’s the law as written, that’s the law as written, and whatever it’s called, it’s the law she broke.

I’m not completely familiar with Georgia law (I’m across the river) but I would assume that she was convicted of vehicular homicide because a) her actions caused a death (the child’s0, and b) a vehicle was involved in the death (even though it was someone else’s). There are certainly other situations which would clearly be vehicular homicide even though the person was not driving — for instance, if a passenger grabs a driver’s arm and he hits someone as a result. The bottom line is that if that’s the law as written, that’s the law as written, and whatever it’s called, it’s the law she broke.

If I was responsible for a 4-year-old child, I have been known to cross streets unsafely, but only when I’m not putting an innocent person at risk.

If I was responsible for a 4-year-old child, I have been known to cross streets unsafely, but only when I’m not putting an innocent person at risk.

For some reason, this thing is eating occasional bits of my comments. This is the third post it’s happened in. That should have been “If I was responsible for a 4-year-old child,I would.”

For some reason, this thing is eating occasional bits of my comments. This is the third post it’s happened in. That should have been “If I was responsible for a 4-year-old child,I would.”

What law? 

http://www.change.org/petitions/cobb-county-ga-release-grieving-mother-of-hit-and-run-install-a-crosswalk

Maybe not even that: http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/07/19/raquel-nelson-was-not-jaywalking-when-hit-and-run-driver-killed-her-child/

I’m not getting that from the article. It seems to be saying the question of whether or not she was committing a crime was an open one, based on whether or not the “street” (from the map it looks more like a parking lot entrance) legally counts as a street or not. One would hope that her lawyer would have brought that up at her trial — if he didn’t, she’s got grounds for appeal right there on the basis of the fact that her attorney was as dumb as a box of rocks. But assuming that the jurors were told at least as much as we Internet commenters know, they were given the facts and they determined that those facts amounted to a death caused while violating a law.

And I, at least, have not said whether she’s morally at fault because she led three young children into five lanes of traffic and one of them died. Yeah, I think she is, but I also think there are people “morally at fault” who are acquitted (see: Casey Anthony) and people not at fault, morally or otherwise, who are convicted (see: the Innocence Project, collectively). That’s not the issue here. The issue is whether she’s LEGALLY at fault. And by my reading of the facts as presented, she seems to be; the people who got all the facts, including those not provided to us anonymous cowards (and we all are, whatever names we pick for ourselves) determined that she was.

It has nothing to do with racism or bigotry. There is one law for all people. The real bigotry is in saying that some people aren’t able to obey the laws because they’re a certain color, or of a certain income level, or in a certain family situation — that those people are not as good as everyone else, and can’t do the same things everyone else can.

I don’t talk about my age, my color, my sex, my income level, or my history — and at least one of those is probably not what you’d think. But none of those makes me exempt from the law.

But who are someone’s peers?

The Magna Carta’s purpose was not to require poor blacksmiths from small villages to have a jury of other poor blacksmiths from small villages; it was to require the king to submit charges against the nobility to a group of other nobles to decide whether they were true instead of just acting unilaterally and imprisoning or killing them and seizing their land. John Lackland was big on, well, not lacking land, enough so that his barons pretty much put a sword to his throat and told him “sign this or else.”

In the US, though, we don’t have a hereditary aristocracy. We don’t have an all-powerful king. So the question of just who constitutes “peers” is a bit more complicated. When the system was aristocracy, gentry, peasants, and churchmen, who someone’s peers were was obvious: someone from the same (pretty much immutable) class. But in a society where the law, not the king’s whim, is paramount, where there is (or should be, certain jurisdictions in Texas notwithstanding) no individual with the right to dispense unilateral justice, and where those rigid, immutable classes are a curiosity of another time and place, who are “peers”?

The answer has to be “everybody”. At the time of King John, there was not one law for all. Moving to a different house could be illegal if you were a serf, but of course not if you were a noble. Killing a rabbit might be legal or illegal for you and your peers, and if it was illegal, the punishment might be an admonition, a fine, or death, depending on who you were. We don’t have that. We don’t want that. And saying we SHOULD have a system like that — that certain crimes shouldn’t be crimes for members of certain groups — is wrong. Even if it starts out with the idea that poor people should have the rights of adults but not the responsibilities, it ends up with the idea that rich people should have the rights of adults but not the responsibilities. We’re too close to that already. The answer isn’t more injustice — it’s less. Two injustices don’t make justice.

Your peers aren’t people who are exactly like you. Your peers are people who are subject to the same laws you are. In ancient England, that was members of your social group — aristocracy, gentry, peasantry, or the church. In the modern US, it’s everyone.

Different jurisdictions, different laws.

In the town where I live, it’s legal for a driver to go through certain red lights after stopping. That doesn’t mean I should do the same thing in Australia, agreed?

[...] news stories just make you lose all faith in humanity. According to the office of Cobb County prosecutor Barry [...]

The prosecutor / office responsible: Barry Morgan, Solicitor General Barry.Morgan@cobbcounty.org Jessica Moss, Chief Assistant Solicitor General Jessica.Moss@cobbcounty.orgAurieanne Sneed, Deputy Solicitor General Aurieanne.Sneed@cobbcounty.org

The fact that the driver was impaired & shouldn’t of been behind the wheel qualiifies him to be guilty of this crime. And for all of “u” inconsidered people that has no compassion for the mother, itz only sad to you or should I say you only feel or have concern when itz ur fam or close 2 home that the these traggic events take place non-the-less if we to charge this mother the only charge that she is due is the fact she is human & trying to take care of her family with problly little or no help. I pray that God will render what is right or just cause he has final say.

prosecutor in this case:Barry Morgan, Solicitor GeneralBarry.Morgan@cobbcounty.org

Barry.Morgan@cobbcounty.org

Is it unfortunate what happened to that child? Yes, very unfortunate. However the fault lies on both the parent and the driver. Also if the current law does place guilt on the mother and a jury found her guilty I see no issue here.

Is it unfortunate what happened to that child? Yes, very unfortunate. However the fault lies on both the parent and the driver. Also if the current law does place guilt on the mother and a jury found her guilty I see no issue here.

The jury’s job is to decide whether the facts of the case as presented at the trial amount to a violation of the law that the accused is charged with violating. 
That is NOT the Job of a Jury.

The Jury has the RIGHT and DUTY to vote in favor of the plaintiff if the Law is deemed to either be Unjust or Inappropriately applied.

In this case it was inappropriately applied.
This false narrative that Jurors are supposed to act like robots has been eroding our justice system for decades, and its time for it to end.

tldr Jury should have Nullified the Verdict (And they could.)

3/10 miles? Thats not very far in my books. Where I come from they give you a ticket for jaywalking even if no one hits you.

The issue here is not the jury. It’s that it was ever prosecuted in the first place. 

The issue here is not the jury. It’s that it was ever prosecuted in the first place. 

The fault here is in transportation policy….by trying to shoehorn old urbist mass transit technology into a new suburban area built for personal transit, you forced someone to cross a heavily trafficked street.

The answer is not urbism.  The answer is not social engineering.

The answer using the appropriate technology which is not light rail or buses or any other type of “mass” transit.

The mother should have gotten access to personal or shared transportation…to wit:  a taxi, or van that would drop her off at her home, or a ZipCar or what I call a “Section 9″ subsidized vehicle of her own.

If you want to point a finger — point it at yourselves and the deaf ears of “transit” planners who insist on creating unusable infrastructure in areas for which it is inappropriate.

[...] Here’s what David Goldberg of Transportation for America wrote in a powerful post about the Nelson case: [...]

By “our legal system” you mean the white legal system that traditionally has no respect, sympathy or empathy for black people or poor people whatsoever.

Yeah, that legal system.

Even if she wasn’t black, she was still a bus rider, which, in this country, makes you “lower class”. Hell, I live in Ohio. Two white women left their kids in hot cars for hours to bake to death. They were never even charged with ANYTHING. Never arrested, it was all decided they had been “punished enough”.

But black people and poor people can never be “punished enough” to suit rich white people. She lost her child – and the best you can say is “she should have known better.”

What a holier than thou asshole you and others of your ilk are.

What would have stopped a non-inpaired driver from hitting the woman and her children?

While Jay walking may not be illegal in Georgia, that has no baring on the has. She was charged and convicted of homicide not because the color of her skin or her income level. But because she put her children in danger. Homicide is defined as “The killing of another by an act of irresponsibility or lack of attention to duty, rather than by intentional act.” Her responsibility as a mother to those kids is to protect those kids, and there is no way you can argue that, she was irresponsible when she crossed that street, which lead to the death of her child. Your right if she was richer she would have not been on the bus and would not have crossed the street. But she was on the bus she did cross the street and her kid got killed for her negligence. By definition that is homicide.  

No, that is not all that jury’s do. If a woman is being raped and she kills her attacker, the jury doesn’t just say, well killing someone is against the law. They take the circumstances into consideration.

Jury’s have the duty to put themselves into someone else’s shoes. And the minute they don’t, justice disappears.

You need to look at the case of Brenda Nesselroad Slaby and also Jodie Edwards and then you tell me if this woman got a fair deal.

What she’s saying is that you can be a “good parent” and still have your child die. That’s the part no one here wants to face.

What happened here was an accident. And more than likely the fault of the drunken driver and sadly, an errant child, but what 4 year old child has the perception of an adult?

But blaming the mother is simply a knee-jerk response that serves no purpose. As much as many would like it to be, it is not her fault what happened.

Anybody with an “ounce” of compassion might think differently.

 absolutely FALSE. 100% totally false. that is NOT the job of the jury. the jury’s job is to judge THE OFFENSE – THE LAW ITSELF – AND THE APPLICABILITY AND FAIRNESS OF SAID LAW

this is why it must be your PEERS. if the jury can not understand YOU they can not JUDGE you or the LAW properly.

“The law isn’t different because you’re a rich media mogul or a poor single mother”

what planet were you born on? what planet are you LIVING ON NOW cause it sure as heck is not THIS EARTH.

the law is VERY different between those too. night and day different in its “application” and “results” not even remotely close to the same thing.

“law that is supposed to be the deciding factor”

NO IT IS NOT. RIGHT AND WRONG ie JUSTICE is supposed to be the deciding factor.

in fact THE WHOLE GOD DAMNED POINT of a jury is to make the law “FAIR” if it was just DECIDE if the law was broken there would be NO NEED for a jury.

the whole stinking POINT of a jury is to defend what is RIGHT including defending the defendant FROM THE LAW if need be.

We have a saying. Ignorance is no excuse for the law. This say is FLAT OUT FALSE FLAT OUR WRONG.

The CORRECT saying (modified) Ignorance is no excuse for common sense.

you see at some point in the past the “law” was pretty simple. it was common sense.

Do not STEAL requires no knowledge or education to understand.

the LAW today is NO LONGER CONNECTED to common sense so the phrase Ignorance is no excuse for the law NO LONGER APPLIES. its no longer VALID.

in my book without INTENT there is no CRIME. if you create a law that you can violate WITHOUT INTENT you have created a BAD LAW and that is PRECISELY what juries are for.

THE PEOPLE DEFINE THE LAW. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. this is why WE HAVE juries in the first place.

the law is wrong. its that simple. that is the reason for a jury and that is why the jury is SUPPOSED to be of her PEERS.

the law is wrong. its that simple. that is the reason for a jury and that is why the jury is SUPPOSED to be of her PEERS.

the law is wrong. its that simple. that is the reason for a jury and that is why the jury is SUPPOSED to be of her PEERS.

Well, then let me tell you what the Georgia law regarding vehicular homicide is. First off, there are provisions for killing someone while engaging in reckless driving, drunken driving, fleeing from a police officer, and when failing to properly yield to a school bus. None of these provisions of § 40-6-393(a) apply. § 40-6-393(b) defines a hit-and-run, which applies to the driver, but not the woman. § 40-6-393(d) requires the “operation of a motor vehicle” and is thus inapplicable.

So maybe § 40-6-393(c) will give us something to work with:
“Any person who causes the death of another person, without an intention
to do so, by violating any provision of this title other than
subsection (a) of Code Section 40-6-163, subsection (b) of Code Section
40-6-270, Code Section 40-6-390 or 40-6-391, or subsection (a) of Code
Section 40-6-395 commits the offense of homicide by vehicle in the
second degree when such violation is the cause of said death and, upon
conviction thereof, shall be punished as provided in Code Section
17-10-3.”

That’s more promising. But wait! What title was she supposedly violating, in this case? Jaywalking? Well, strictly speaking, crossing without a crosswalk is not illegal, as long as it is done safely. I refer you to § 40-6-92(a):

“Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a
marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection
shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway unless he
has already, and under safe conditions, entered the roadway.”

So then this woman must have failed to “yield the right of way”, correct?

But there’s a problem there too. “‘Right of way’ means the right of one vehicle or pedestrian to proceed IN A LAWFUL MANNER in preference to another vehicle or pedestrian
approaching under such circumstances of direction, speed, and proximity
as to give rise to danger of collision unless one grants precedence to
the other” (§ 40-1-1(52)) [Emphasis added].

Since the drunken dumbass lost his right to lawfully operate his motor vehicle the moment he sucked down four beers and two painkillers, it is plausible to argue that he cannot have the “right of way” to drive illegally. In which case, it was impossible for the mother to fail to yield the right of way, and this charge is entirely baseless.

Well, then let me tell you what the Georgia law regarding vehicular homicide is. First off, there are provisions for killing someone while engaging in reckless driving, drunken driving, fleeing from a police officer, and when failing to properly yield to a school bus. None of these provisions of § 40-6-393(a) apply. § 40-6-393(b) defines a hit-and-run, which applies to the driver, but not the woman. § 40-6-393(d) requires the “operation of a motor vehicle” and is thus inapplicable.

So maybe § 40-6-393(c) will give us something to work with:
“Any person who causes the death of another person, without an intention
to do so, by violating any provision of this title other than
subsection (a) of Code Section 40-6-163, subsection (b) of Code Section
40-6-270, Code Section 40-6-390 or 40-6-391, or subsection (a) of Code
Section 40-6-395 commits the offense of homicide by vehicle in the
second degree when such violation is the cause of said death and, upon
conviction thereof, shall be punished as provided in Code Section
17-10-3.”

That’s more promising. But wait! What title was she supposedly violating, in this case? Jaywalking? Well, strictly speaking, crossing without a crosswalk is not illegal, as long as it is done safely. I refer you to § 40-6-92(a):

“Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a
marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection
shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway unless he
has already, and under safe conditions, entered the roadway.”

So then this woman must have failed to “yield the right of way”, correct?

But there’s a problem there too. “‘Right of way’ means the right of one vehicle or pedestrian to proceed IN A LAWFUL MANNER in preference to another vehicle or pedestrian
approaching under such circumstances of direction, speed, and proximity
as to give rise to danger of collision unless one grants precedence to
the other” (§ 40-1-1(52)) [Emphasis added].

Since the drunken dumbass lost his right to lawfully operate his motor vehicle the moment he sucked down four beers and two painkillers, it is plausible to argue that he cannot have the “right of way” to drive illegally. In which case, it was impossible for the mother to fail to yield the right of way, and this charge is entirely baseless.

Well, then let me tell you what the Georgia law regarding vehicular homicide is. First off, there are provisions for killing someone while engaging in reckless driving, drunken driving, fleeing from a police officer, and when failing to properly yield to a school bus. None of these provisions of § 40-6-393(a) apply. § 40-6-393(b) defines a hit-and-run, which applies to the driver, but not the woman. § 40-6-393(d) requires the “operation of a motor vehicle” and is thus inapplicable.

So maybe § 40-6-393(c) will give us something to work with:
“Any person who causes the death of another person, without an intention
to do so, by violating any provision of this title other than
subsection (a) of Code Section 40-6-163, subsection (b) of Code Section
40-6-270, Code Section 40-6-390 or 40-6-391, or subsection (a) of Code
Section 40-6-395 commits the offense of homicide by vehicle in the
second degree when such violation is the cause of said death and, upon
conviction thereof, shall be punished as provided in Code Section
17-10-3.”

That’s more promising. But wait! What title was she supposedly violating, in this case? Jaywalking? Well, strictly speaking, crossing without a crosswalk is not illegal, as long as it is done safely. I refer you to § 40-6-92(a):

“Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a
marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection
shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway unless he
has already, and under safe conditions, entered the roadway.”

So then this woman must have failed to “yield the right of way”, correct?

But there’s a problem there too. “‘Right of way’ means the right of one vehicle or pedestrian to proceed IN A LAWFUL MANNER in preference to another vehicle or pedestrian
approaching under such circumstances of direction, speed, and proximity
as to give rise to danger of collision unless one grants precedence to
the other” (§ 40-1-1(52)) [Emphasis added].

Since the drunken dumbass lost his right to lawfully operate his motor vehicle the moment he sucked down four beers and two painkillers, it is plausible to argue that he cannot have the “right of way” to drive illegally. In which case, it was impossible for the mother to fail to yield the right of way, and this charge is entirely baseless.

I known better than to have more children than I can control. I know I wouldn’t try to cross a busy highway illegally.  I wouldn’t try to do it without my wife. She should have waited until her husband was home.

[...] LINKS LINKS Posted on July 20, 2011 by jdavidcharles Apparently losing your 4 year-old son due to a drunk hit-and-run driver can get you convicted of vehicular homicide. [...]

This is why you keep your litter on leashes.

It’s not that simple. One could make an argument that the city was the irresponsible party for not providing a crosswalk. The driver also acted irresponsibly by driving under the influence. Hell, you could even argue that the mother choice of taking the quickest route was responsible because she was trying to shorten the amount of time her children would be exposed to the dangers of the road.

What happened here was a  terrible accident that could have been avoided in many different ways. But the fact of the matter is that the charge of vehicular homicide is ridiculous and a sentencing of 3 years in jail is absurd.

I would like to know the race of the driver. Its no way he only got got 6 months for a hit & run and he was intoxicated. He should have been given a DWI/DUI and vehicular manslaughter. The mother on the other hand should have gotten a ticket for jaywalking as well as charged with some form of neglect. She did not have the intent to murder her child so homicide does not apply in this case. I do believe she neglected to take her child to a safer crossing because it was a far walk to make with grocery bags and 3 kids but she did not intend on her child being killed by crossing where she did. I think her lawyers should fight for a new trial especially due to the fact that the jury was not actually a jury of her peers. US law is crappy and it sad that people of certain races are treated unfairly by the justice system. I bet if the mother was a white woman she would not had even went to trial or jail.

You are absolutely wrong if you believe that jurors are some kind of robots that disregard their life experiences and biases and make perfect, rational formulations of facts to law.

You are just making excuses for injustice.

The injustice is that the jury was ever given this to decide. The prosecutor looked at what occurred and decided to punish the mother, even though it was obviously not her fault since the driver was intoxicated, half-blind, etc. He abused his power by bringing this type of case. Surely there was no public outcry that forced his hand to charge her in the death of her son. Hopefully his constituents will vote him out of office.

You are absolutely wrong if you believe that jurors are some kind of robots that disregard their life experiences and biases and make perfect, rational formulations of facts to law.

You are just making excuses for injustice.

The injustice is that the jury was ever given this to decide. The prosecutor looked at what occurred and decided to punish the mother, even though it was obviously not her fault since the driver was intoxicated, half-blind, etc. He abused his power by bringing this type of case. Surely there was no public outcry that forced his hand to charge her in the death of her son. Hopefully his constituents will vote him out of office.

Ha ha, I guess you don’t know a lot about jury selection and jury law in America. Shorter: the goal is to get a jury who are entirely non-peers and know nothing pertaining to any material fact in the case, thus sparing socially climbing prosecutors from any embarrassment.

Have you ever walked a 1/2 mile in an Atlanta summer, one of the hottest on record?  With three kids in tow AND groceries?  No?  Then shut up.  The densely populated burbs are notorious for not being pedestrian friendly AT ALL, and are chock full of drivers who would rather slam into you than slow down and let you cross a street.  I once made the foolish attempt to try and cross a multi-lane road in Kennesaw, which is about 10 minutes north of the area in the article, and do you know how long it took me to cross at a designated cross walk?  25 minutes.  The way the lights were timed, it never allowed a period of time where there wasn’t any traffic coming, thus preventing me from crossing the street.  I got across eventually, but only because someone in the left turn lane saw my vain attempts to cross and actually stopped to let me go.  The Walk/Do Not Walk signs?  Didn’t even work.  I can assure you, the majority of large intersections in suburban Atlanta, especially in the lower income areas, are death traps for pedestrians.  Lights/intersections are few and far between and do not correlate to any sort of city block format.  This unsympathetic/unempathetic mindset is the reason why this country is currently in the crapper.  Can you put aside your white male privilege mentality for two seconds and have a heart?  A woman lost a small child at the hands of a drunk driver.  And somehow that’s her fault?  Because she didn’t schlep another 1/2 mile down the road in a 105 degree heat index day with 3 hot, cranky kids in two and a load of groceries?  Do you realize how that makes you sound?  Like an asshole, sir.  A Grade-A certified USDA inspected asshole.  And shame on the other 70 people for liking your comment.  Bunch of unfeeling, heartless bastards.

You are a disgusting excuse for a human being Tommy; a vile and despicable sociopath who should not be allowed to roam free in society. May YOU suffer as much heartbreak as this poor woman has ten thousand times over! It will certainly take as much to make you develop a sliver of compassion and common sense.

It was 3/10 of a mile each way of a little over a half mile round trip.

Gary, your lack of empathy and continued veiled racism/sexism is pretty telling. Shhhh.

Considering you’ve limited yourself to two braincells, your comment makes complete sense.

And arguably a civic duty.

Where the legal class system has disappeared, a socioeconomic one has taken it’s place. We have classes, whether we like it or not, and pretending we don’t, or that someone from a vastly more privileged background can judge someone dirt poor fairly isn’t justice.

I’m not saying that someone needs to be judged by someone exactly like them, I’m saying that whether someone can reasonably be considered a peer or not depends on at least having similar background. That jury was just as much “above” her as a jury composed of aristocracy would have been judging peasants. Judging from the article, not a one of them had ever been forced to walk more than the distance from the front door to the car door. In a trial that hinges on  whether or not a reasonable person would have done the same thing – as the vehicular homicide charge does, that’s very important, because the reasonableness is entirely subjective.

terribly sad, and terrible planning to not have safe pedestrian access.

Online petitions are useless.

Unlike all the women over at Feministing, I learned to use a crosswalk when I was a child.

You would choose to walk the additional half mile? After a long day at work? When you’re a stone’s throw from home, and all you have to do is carefully time your crossing? And you would do this day in and day out, whether it’s a hundred degrees out or pouring rain?

Really?

[...] Nelson have been convicted of vehicular homicide if she had been a white man? Probably not. As David Goldberg pointed out, the jury was made up of middle class white people, none of whom had ever taken a bus in the metro [...]

[...] let my friend, former Atlantan, David Goldberg, who wrote Monday about the case on the Transportation for America blog, take it from here. Nelson, 30 and African-American, was convicted on the charge … by six [...]

How can someone be convicted of “homicide by vehicle” if they did not operate the vehicle? Doesn’t the law have as one of the elements of the crime, that the accused be the operator of the vehicle?  Why wasn’t the operator of the vehicle also charged with homicide by vehicle?  Crossing the street and possibly breaking a traffic law while a pedestrian can not be the nexus to the charge of homicide by vehicle, can it?  While I agree that it is also a  transportation planning issue as to why she chose to cross the street, the conviction seems to be something that can be overturned on appeal.   Wasn’t the proximate cause of the “accident” the operator of the vehicle and wasn’t the family crossing the street like the proverbial bouncing ball every driver must be aware of?

Your ”advice” is based on the assumption that there is in fact a husband.

She wasn’t a single mother popping babies out. She is a divorcee living in another state with no support or help from her ex husband. 

Figures this would be in the South.

[...] complex had complained to the city about their difficulties getting home from the bus stop. The Transportation in America blogshows a photo of the stretch of highway where Nelson crossed as evidence city planners are guilty of [...]

No, the fault here is the stupid mother who crossed 5 lanes of traffic without a crosswalk. Pretty sure she made the decision to not properly ensure the safety of both her and her child. So the other patrons crossed at the same spot – did they have kids? She has nobody to blame but herself.

And I assure you that she’ll probably blame herself for years to come. Her child is dead. But that’s not the question. The question is whether or not she should be sentenced to 36 months in jail for it, along with the larger questions of whether or not we’re designing infrastructure to suit the needs of people who actually use it.

Sounds about right.  This idiot crossed the street without using a cross-walk.  Boo-hoo that it’s 1/3 mile away.  Add on child-abuse, child-endangerment, laziness, stupidity.  What a complete loser!

They DID have safe pedestrian access. It was 1/3 of a mile away.  Walk your a** down there and cross safely.  Pedestrian access is supposed to be safe, not convenient.  Moron.

Yep.

Force to cross?  Walk down to the Gdamn crosswalk!!!!!!!!

Hooray!  A smart response.

[...] Transportation For America » Prosecuting the victim, absolving the perpetrators. [...]

[...] [...]

When all else fails, blame the victim…

This is really sad. I pray for the family.

[...] Read more here. [...]

>Online petitions are useless.

You assume. But what if you are wrong, and it turned out you could actually help someone like this by adding your name—you and perhaps thousands of others—to let the prosecutors in charge know that many Americans find this example of prosecutorial zeal completely unacceptable? Just adding one’s name requires so little effort, so little risk.

[...] complex had complained to the city about their difficulties getting home from the bus stop. The Transportation in America blog shows a photo of the stretch of highway where Nelson crossed as evidence city planners are guilty [...]

Maybe a FATHER would.

Maybe a single MOTHER (i.e., a WOMAN) would understandably want to get inside with her kids as soon as possible (as she stated) when she finds herself out after dark in an urban area, after missing her earlier bus.

But hey, that’s just me being a silly responsible woman who’s had it drilled into me all my life that’s unsafe for me to be on the streets at night…

Well, the Supreme Court of the United States disagrees with you.

It IS actually considered a violation of the Constitution (equal protection, due process) if a jury is selected from a pool that is non-representative of the defendant. So I guess it DOES matter whether or not a jury is completely unlike the defendant when they are being asked to judge the actions of their fellow-citizen.

Sorry, but this type of response seems to me to come from men or women who have never had to wrangle 2-3 little ones late in the day.  They missed a bus and were an hour later than they expected, imagine 3 kids, tired, cranky, whiney…  I know plenty of mother’s who have made similar decisions in that situation.  What happened was tragic and I imagine she will feel the guilt and responsibility for it forever, prosecuting her for it however is ridiculous.

[...] This photo shows the bus stop on Austell Road and the path taken by Raquel Nelson to get to her apartment complex across the street. No marked crossings are visible in the photo. Source: T4America [...]

[...] addthis_product = 'wpp-261'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};The response to our post on the Atlanta mother who was charged with vehicular homicide when her child was struck by a hit-and-run driver while crossing a street has been, to put it [...]

Figures all those apologists blaming this on the victim and her mother. They subscribe to the just world theory that somehow she deserved it just because (insert dogwhistle terms here). However, the world doesn’t work that way. Inequalities exist everywhere from the hectic errand-running a possible single mother makes, the poverty that’s made her take public transit, the lack of babysitting, the prosecution of this case, the jury selection. But we have apologists for our current system where people such as Carl can handwave those factors away just because he’s biased. (Not sure racism or classism.) And it’s getting worse in this country. It’s really sigusting to see.

This area is not “urban” by any stretch of the term. It is not exactly rural either. The houses and apartment complexes are too old and haphazard to qualify for suburban. There used to be horse or cattle pastures scattered along the side roads. In fact the area, between the towns of Marietta and Smyrna, is in “unincorporated Cobb Co.” It’s dark there at night. And none of the crosswalks are safe. Besides, the woman didn’t have much choice to hike to the crosswalk because the child darted into the road in front of a drunk driver who then chose to keep on going.

[...] When DFHs like me say things like “cars kill” (they do, you can look it up and count dead bodies), and “we’ve got a car-sick culture”, this is the kind of crap that we’re talking about. [...]

[...] Also, more background on pedestrian-safety and road-design issues in the original. [...]

If the jury were to convict the woman, the most she should be convicted of is jaywalking, which is the only crime I can see that she actually committed. I remember when I was little, I did something just like her son, and my mother freaked out, but she couldn’t stop me. I was an only child at the time, and if my mother couldn’t stop me from running into a busy street, how was a mother with her hands full and three kids supposed to stop one of them from getting away from her?

I’m not saying I agree with her decision not to walk down to the crosswalk, but I don’t see how a reasonable jury could EVER convict someone of vehicular homicide in a case like this, unless they’re completely out of touch with reality.

[...] Goldberg of Transportation for America expressed his outrage that the all-white jurors could not seem to place themselves in the shoes of a mother [...]

I’m curious about a few things in the article. In one spot it indicates over half a mile to the nearest traffic signal, in another, three tenths. It also indicates the jurors weren’t her peers because they’re white, but doesn’t indicate if any had children.

I’m not saying I agree with her conviction, but the article is a little confusing.

A driver is suppose to always be aware of what is going on in front of him and around him when he is driving. I think the the result of this situation is wrong… mother was trying to get off the street asap. The idea of a panel of “your peers” did not happen in this case. This should be declaired a mistrip in my opinion. And what of the judge who was on this trial?? Did he/she lose their training all of a sudden. I realize common sense doesn’t seem to reign, but there must have been some point of law about a jury of your peers that was out of wack… all I can say is “wow”….

How much money was spent on this ludicrous case? Do they require the prosecutors to have high school diplomas or even a GED in Georgia? This case makes me sick.

Anonymous, you assume the law works the way it is supposed to.  It does not.  In my community the judges refuse to work by the rules and the disciplinary commissions are throwing out 98 of 100 judge disciplinary complaints without investigation.  This works well for attorneys and judges job security, since they can do literally anything and get away with it with no liability for even CRIMINAL acts.  They are “selling” rulings.

Our executive and legislative branches have had a coup.  Attorneys, with a commitment to the bar have eleminated our system of checks and balances.  Just try making a complaint for a judges CRIMINAL acts to an office holder…there is no check on power.  “I have no jurisdiction” is the first thing you’ll hear…not an interest in the situation or the wrongdoing…the conflicts of interest are obvious and they are everywhere, including most prosecutors offices.

Now the US is in need of leadership and we are not finding it.  Lawyers are not economists or successful business persons and have never grown a business.   They know nothing about making a complex economy perform or growing jobs.  They have become accustom to lying, misrepresenting fact and law and manipulating… the very attributes that we do not need in our public offices. 

I agree that this jury should be made up of her peers and apparently it was not.  But what’s worse is I have no faith in the judge that should have made it right to begin with. 

Read judge Edith Jones comments to the law students in Harvard about NIHILISM in 2003. It’s got worse not better.   I think you can google it.  You will see that the underpinnings of law have disappeared. 

Judges and attorneys have become lie factories.  One attorney told me “it’s not about truth and justice any more, it’s about who can get away with the biggest lie”.  Then he told me about competition in the county bar for the honor, that includes judges. 

Imagine…open competition in a county bar to “see who can get away with the biggest lie(s)’. 

That’s our US judicial system today…selling rulings to the high bidder. 

Disciplinary Commission’s…what disciplinary commissions !!! 

Not only will she be locked up at taxpayer expense of around $38.00/day, but her children will be taken away, perhaps split up (and we pay for foster care).  No wonder America is broke and lost it’s track….attorneys are running this failing country. 

No Ceneric, theres no proof that he did anything wrong.  The article says he had a couple of drinks and perhaps some medication, but that did not necessarily put him at fault,  He would surely have been cited if he was drunk. 

The article says it was dark.  A person not expecting people on a divided highway can come upon them so fast that there is no time to react. A black person (or any race) in dark clothes can blend into the darkness.    

I’ll bet he felt terrible about the accident, but he was not liable unless he saw the child and ran over him intentionally. 

This mother will live with this for the rest of her life and so will the person who hit the child.   
 

Worn out parents often make bad decisions.  Clearly this is one.  But is it criminal? 

I doubt this mother with her hands full ever dreamed her child would dart out.  If you want to make an example, prosecute everyone who jaywalks so people know it’s against the law before something bad happens. 

Just tell me how many other people (or this woman) have received citations for crossing at that spot to put her on warning that crossing there is not legal.  Can you find one, ten or thirty citations, since people apparently cross there all the time. 

Lets see the intentional portion, where a person has actual knowledge of the law and does it anyway.   Give us more than “jaywalking” which is probably something everyone has done at some point somewhere.  Show us the list of citations at that spot to believe she had ANY intent to break the law. 

Please see my reply to Jennifer above.  When you show me a list of persons cited and convicted for jaywalking there, at the spot many persons cross all the time, then I will believe she had (or should have had) knowledge that it is illegal.  

Your stance of “common sense” is not true Carl.  Our state has a huge number of divided highway roads that have absolutely no place to cross for pedestrians.  Even bicyclists put themselves at risk.  These roads have divided neighborhoods and walkers are more dangerous crossing at a busy intersection, with traffic coming from every direction (and in our case no allowance for pedestrians at all), than in the straight section at least 1/4th mile away, where speeds can be judged and there is no chance for traffic from in front, behind or turning.  What she did is logical, perhaps even safer than at an intersection at night.   

Show me thirty citations and convictions for jaywalking at this spot, then I will think she had some knowledge that it is illegal (or should have).  Intent is not there.  People apparently cross there all the time.  The jury’s job is to determine if she had knowledge (or by demonstration should have) that the act was illegal and did it any way.  Did even one of the persons who crossed at the same spot even get a jaywalking ticket?  

That part is missing and the judge clearly didn’t care to instruct the jury about necessity of ”intent” and “knowledge”… to make it a crime.   

No Girl, justice is more than strict law.  Justice does not disappear in a properly ran court room. 

But apparently this judge cares little about the rules.  I’d like to hear his instructions to the jury about knowledge and intent…two necessary components for a criminal conviction.  What put her on warning that this act could be illegal?  Did she have enough knowledge then do it anyway.

Once again, how many citations have been given at the spot in the last 6 months?  If it’s less than 20-30, then one cannot say she had knowledge and without knowledge…intent to break the law. 

You make an assumption that the intersection, where traffic can come from multiple directions, is truly “safer”.  It may not be, especially at night.  I’d rather be at a place away from the traffic light where I can judge speed and no cars can come from behind, in front or while turning. 

If you took your child to the beach and they ran off and drowned…you say a person should go to jail for a crime.  They should know they can drown at the beach.  BULLPOOP. 

Tragic as this is, that child mistook the persons who ran across as those to follow.  Should they also be convicted of a crime for leading the child into traffic? 

How do you know that this woman had any knowledge that crossing there is illegal and dangerous?  How many others have been cited there within the last 6 months?  How many “DO NOT CROSS” signs are there?      

Clearly crossing at an intersection on a divided highway has it’s own dangers.  Traffic can come from both sides, front and back and turning in every direction.  This tragedy could easily have happened there.  

I make the argument that an intersection on a busy divided highway is even MORE dangerous than where one has clear visibility and only two directions of traffic travel.   

If you have never crossed at that light, your blowing smoke here, because you have no idea that it is more or less dangerous.  My view is that crossing where traffic can only come from two directions, and you have 1/4 mile of visibility, is much safer than crossing at an intersection with many, many directions of traffic travel.  You are assuming the intersection is truly safer, which may be a totally false assumption. 

She (attempted to) cross with outher people.  Nobody reached out to help her apparently.  What responsibility do they have?

[...] Folks…I give you the height of stupidity with this one. I read this story and about exploded. More here. [...]

How many times have you crossed a divided highway on foot before?  And have you ever crossed at that intersection? It may be WAY MORE DANGEROUS. 

You seem to know the area Paladin. 

Please tell me.. are there sidewalks to get to the intersection or must they walk along a busy highway at night?  If they got to the intersection, is there defined crosswalks that stop all traffic, including turning cars? 

And most important, how many people have been cited for crossing where she did in the last 6 months? 

Your assumption that the intersection, or getting to the intersection is more dangerous than where she crossed, is flawed.  I much rather cross where traffic can only come from one direction (divided highway) and have 1/4 mile visibility than at an intersection with many flow patterns.  Especially at night.  You don’t know that the intersection is in fact safer.

And the intersection may be way more hazardous at night than a position with traffic flow in one direction and visibility for a 1/4 mile. 

IT WAS SOLD, BRIAN.  First we stopped disciplining judges and attorneys for breaking the rules and then, to be sure, we (the US) has no operating “checks and balances” in our government… we elected members of the bar to executive and legislative positions. 

Our attorneys and judges have made a silent coup on the other branches of government, assuring there is no “check” on abuses in the judicial branch, giving them God like powers that are completely un-checked or policed. 

I think there should be a lawsuit against Cobb County for poor pedestrian handling. If you’re a lawyer, please pick up the case pro-bono and teach people a lesson for this injustice.

I wonder why a city can’t be found guilty of murder.

Only individuals can be held guilty of a crime and only if the prosecutor goes after them. Otherwise it is considered a “civil” issue. 

Here the Prosecutor has chosen to absolve his community leaders of criminal negligence, providing a cross walk between two bus stops (note this is an intersection), where they know people are crossing anyway… by charging this woman with a crime.  This is a common legal diversionary tactic to avoid liability themselves, I believe. 

If I were a lawyer, and I’m not, I would offer to sue the county and individuals for neglegence in a wrongful death lawsuit under civil law and ask for punitive damages.  The lawyer usually gets one third or so.     

If he had felt “terrible”, he would’ve stopped. He didn’t – making it his THIRD hit run offence.

[...] read about the case on Transportation For America’s blog. Eliza is a passionate advocate for public transportation access, especially in low-income [...]

[...] read about the case on Transportation For America’s blog. Eliza is a passionate advocate for public transportation access, especially in low-income [...]

A lot of you people obviously: Don’t have kids, have never used public transport, and have never tried to cross a divided highway.
Regardless of what you think about the number of kids she has, she had them out taking care of them like a parent should. They had been out all day, walking, had eaten dinner and it was late at night. The kids were going to be behaving like wild heathens. What’s to say that the kid wouldn’t have ran off of the sidewalk or into the intersection before time to cross?
As for the “safer” intersection…. I am a FREQUENT bus rider. it is effin’ dangerous no matter where you live. i also have to cross divided highways on a few of the routes I take.
1.Divided highway intersections do not have Pedestrian signals or crosswalks. 
2. The traffic lights at those things run the gamut of extremely long, to blink and you miss it. Most of them run closer to blink and you miss it at night because pedestrians OBVIOUSLY don’t need to cross at night.
3. It is a far more horrible crime to be driving under the influence. The guy that killed the kid was a REPEAT offender. Even if he wasn’t a repeat offender, there is absolutely no question that driving under the influence is completely illegal in the WHOLE United States. I don’t give a *insert explitive of choice here* what the circumstance. if you are driving a motor vehicle while drunk or otherwise intoxicated, you should be prosecuted. If you do it and KILL someone, it should be MURDER. You knew better than to drink or get high and go drive.
4. Every parent has had their child get away from them at least once. I don’t care how perfect of a parent that you think that you are, it is a statistical CERTAINTY that Junior is going to get away from you at some point during their childhood. Every parent that I know has a My child ran into the busy parking lot or out into the street after their ball story. Even when you are right next to them, sometimes kids just don’t listen.
People on the internet want to hold other people to a standard that they would likely never keep themselves. I think the woman has been through enough and the driver, not enough.

Your right Katharine.  I overlooked that in the very first sentence. The point I was trying to make is that anyone could do the same thing (not see them).  If my post implies he did nothing wrong, I did not intend that, it was meant to express that they may have been very hard to see.  Certainly leaving the scene of an accident is wrong. Did they say if he knew he hit someone or not?

While I totally agree with the incredible risk of crossing on a dark highway with three little ones, I would like to see this mother spared.  She has suffered enough.

Although, apparently this was not the first hit and run from the driver:

From the AJC article: 
Guy confessed to having consumed “a little” alcohol earlier in the
day, being prescribed pain medication and being partially blind in his
left eye, said David Simpson, his attorney.

“This still effects [Jerry] to this day,” Simpson said. “It is tragic all around.”

Guy was originally charged with hit and run, first degree homicide by
vehicle and cruelty to children. Charges were later dropped to just the
hit and run charge.

Court records show that Guy was previously convicted of two-hit-and-runs on the same day, Feb. 17, 1997.

The first hit-and-run also happened on Austell Road, but when Guy
fled from that scene he hit another car, seriously injuring that driver
and passenger, records show.

Guy pleaded guilty and received a two-year prison sentence, but was
out in less than a year, according to the Department of Corrections
website.

More here:  http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/pedestrian-convicted-of-vehicular-1014879.html

She should have never been charged. There should have been no trial. This poor mother is suffering enough and will suffer the rest of her life. 4-year-olds are just that – 4-years-old – they don’t think before doing the things they do. Ms. Nelson, you are in my prayers. Her county solicitor is an idiot and the jury of her NOT peers are idiots.

No way I am sticking up for this man as I don’t know his real condition.  You certainly have more information that makes one believe he could have been impared and have more responsibility. 

But don’t focus entirely on his condition because it is understandable that a child, darting in front of someone at night, might not be avoidable to anybody, impared or not.    

The way I look at it, and what I was taught in my Criminal Justice classes by a former Police Chief (now my town’s Mayor) is that the chain of events in this type of situation is such:  The police make an arrest– with that said, whatever police officer arrested and charged this poor lady instead of giving her a Jaywalking ticket was the first “official” person of blame in this deal.  After an arrest, the charges are brought to the DA who decides to prosecute or NOT to– the DA who actually made this INSANE charge stick and decide to prosecute is the second “official” person of blame in this!  The next step is to present it to the Judge who decides if the case is going to proceed or not.  Apparently, this Judge had not one lick of common sense and is the third “official” person of blame in this deal because she could have thrown the case out and told the DA and officer to stop wasting the taxpayers money on that kind of crap and focus on the person who actually drove under the influence instead.  Then instead of giving such a mild sentence to said person, they should have thrown the book at him because anyone with sense knows better than to drive under the influence especially after dark when you really can’t see anything at all!  In my opinion, the Governor needs to pardon this lady and then take a very close look at the local judicial system and perform some serious staff evaluations…I think some restructuring on the local police force and DA office is seriously warranted!!

I am so sorry about her tragedy, but there is a fast traffic road and someone crosses in front of you abruptly, there is little way to avoid the accident under the circumstances. The driver may well have had a beer – this does not mean he was impaired – and he served jail time even though it is unfair. None of us would have been able to avoid the impact. The boy was 4? if you don’t trust your 4-yr old in such a road (and I agree it’s not something the average 4yr old can handle, especially if he does not listens to what he’s told), don’t attempt jaywalking where it is very dangerous. Personally I think nobody should have served jail time as there was no intention to kill and no gross negligence (who will return the driver the 6 months of his life, and the damage to his reputation, and the heartache?) but that the lady tries to pass as a victim? May these people never cross in front of our cars. If she receives an examplary sentence and some other child’s life is saved because of its deterrence, that’s what justice is for. 

umm. i dunno. i think its pretty irresponsible to cross a four lane highway with small children with out  using a cross walk. i ride the crap metro in my town and the bus stop i use is a block or so from where i need to cross but i don’t just dart out in front of traffic because people get killed all the time doing that. She should have been more responsible and used the cross walk. you can’t expect even sober drivers to be aware at night when pedestrians run out in front of them. sad story. of course the impared driver should be held accoutable as well.

Hopefully some combination of the following: Attention, reflexes, conscience

Because I’m sure you know exactly what it feels like after a long day, a missed bus, and a handful of children all under the age of 10, with bags of groceries, to walk the extra half mile (which with small children can take a long time on its own but takes about 20 minutes walking normally). I’m sure you’ve been in that EXACT situation and I’m sure you’re the perfect parent who has never made a mistake or tried to just get home faster and put your kids to sleep. I’m sure it’s just total irresponsibility on her part and how dare she do what dozens of people do daily and how dare she take the quickest way possible. Let me ask you, when was the last time you put your holier-than-thou butt on public transit with small children? Because I take the bus daily, and though I don’t have kids, I know how unbelievably frustrating it is to miss your bus and have to wait for the next one when all you want to do is get home and relax. And I see parents with their kids take the bus all the time and I see how much of a hassle it is and how the way stops are set up are not always conducive to safe boarding/crossing.

Nelson had 3 children, and her four-year-old darted out when he saw another bus rider dart out. She was holding his hand, but the child loosened the grip. This could have happened at a crosswalk as well. The circumstance she was in – having to cross a four lane highway from the bus stop to the apartment complex – were undesirable, but not irresponsible on Nelson’s part.

I’m not sure what the jaywalking laws are in Georgia, but generally jaywalking – when not at a crosswalk or intersection with traffic lights – is defined as failing to yield the right-of-way to vehicles. In this case the young innocent child did what was defined as jaywalking, and lost his life. The mother should be treated with compassion and understanding, instead of facing a selfish prosecutor and unaware jury.

Having taken buses before,I must say that’s no indication either.  Usually, the same bus you’re on from one side of the road is not the bus that hits the other stop on the other side.  What’s more, where I took the bus, they stopped running at 6pm to boot.  It’s entirely possible that, just to get to the bus stop on the other side of the street she would have had to take the bus she was on down its full route, switch buses, and then switch buses again.

Also, as someone who use to take buses and walk all over town without kids, TSIndiana keeps making a very good point people.  The intersections are not necessarily safer at all and can in fact be more dangerous. 

Even if there were actual crossing signs, you have to run across the street in order to avoid the don’t walk blinking at you just as soon as the walk does.  Someone physically fit and definitely without kids and groceries in toe can make it I’m sure before walk turns into don’t walk.  Some crosswalks I’d take two jogged steps out before walk turned into don’t walk.

What’s more, if there wasn’t a crosswalk at that intersection, then it isn’t technically any more legal for her to cross on foot, which as another person mentioned and was (I believe) misunderstood for, means, with no actual crosswalk with signs, where she crossed would have been legal since there was no reasonably nearby, legal place to cross.

Sidewalks are another major assumption here.  If there were no sidewalks at all and they had to walk along the shoulder, then yes, it would be safer to cross with all the other bus riders.

Should she actually have broken the jay walking law (which she may not have if the intersection was not marked for pedestrians), she should have been charged then with jaywalking and fined.  The rest of it is compassionless bull.

Still, that’s all ignoring the fact that crossing at the crosswalk is very likely to have been more dangerous regardless.

What’s more, the fact that he darted unexpectedly from the safe median to follow others means it’s rather likely he could have done the same thing at the intersection and been even more likely to get hit by the multi-directional traffic.

As for my area, I HAVE to jaywalk with my son all the time if I wanted to get to and from bus stops.  I would have no choice and I live right near a major route through town.  There are no crosswalks or crossing signs and there are no sidewalks either and it isn’t even a question of walking x amount of distance to get to one.  The nearest ones are far more than a mile.  According to pedestrian law, that makes it not jaywalking wherever I should choose to cross.  Either way, it doesn’t mean the crosswalk was a safer alternative.

Another good point now that I’m writing a comment is the one about caste.  yeah, we may all be commoners but it’s blindness not to realize we still have an informal social separation of sorts here.  All middle class judging poor class really has very little difference between nobles judging commoners or commoners judging serfs and whatnot.

If you must set an example that jaywalking is dangerous, convict and fine her for that and then follow up by fining everyone else who does it.  maybe the fines collected could be used to move the bus stop forward 3/10 of a mile so as to get rid of the “choice” to violate as apparently more than she does on a daily basis.

Where is the unlike button?  I meant to reply, not like.  I’m not seeking to absolve her of her actions but you presume the crosswalk was actually safer.  Particularly considering her son darted out unexpectedly, he would have very likely been hit at the crosswalk for the same behavior and that too is assuming the crosswalk with more than one direction of traffic to watch was actually safer.  Not to mention that the walk don’t walk signs often only blink walk for about two-four steps, I’ve almost never had one blink walk the entire way across 2 lanes and jogging (without kids).

This just seems another case where people keep presuming they know better and yacking about maternal blame presuming they would have done differently.

I almost had my kid taken away from me because he kept leaving the house through ingenius methods and no one would believe me, I had to tie and jerry rig the cat’s leash to him in order to use the bathroom without making him stand in there with me.  He wasn’t running away from home, just running off to be king of the dinosaur jungle for awhile without realizing the danger.  Everyone but my husband whispered blaming me for being lazy etc, had he gotten hit, I probably would have been convicted.  No one realized I was actually being honest about how darned sneaky he was until even after telling his school and asking key questions about their windows and everything, he managed to sneak passed the “six adults near the exits at all times” defense and still escape the school one day.  And they didn’t even realize he was gone!  He was found and brought to the nearest school by the sheriff’s deputy who saw him wandering an apartment complex 3 blocks away (in the opposite direction of home) looking for his mommy to kiss his booboo.  Which never would have happened if people weren’t so busy judging me as a neglectful mother and actually helped me rather than rolling their eyes when I requested more locks on the door from the landlord, or giving him juice and cookies in the cop car while lecturing me about my horrible parenting skills.

That’s the danger of laying blame with the mother when you don’t KNOW anything but the fact she was convicted.  When you presume your decisions would have been safer or when you believe you’d be more vigiliant in the same situation, you get a kid and bam, even forewarned with six experienced school officials at all exits, he still got out.  The kid darted out for pete’s sake, he still probably would have gotten hit darting out at a crosswalk.  Therefore, the only thing she should be found guilty of is jaywalking.

It was an ACCIDENT. The drunk driver got 6 stinking months for hit and run and driving under the influence, but the child’s MOTHER might get 36 months??? How is it fair that the idiot, p.o.s. driver, who’s had prior offenses, gets off pretty much scott-free, while the kid’s mother, who had no idea that her son was going to run out into traffic (because us mothers aren’t PSYCHIC, nor are we MIND-READERS) is going to take the brunt of the punishment?? I don’t care what the stupid jury has to decide. If I were on that jury, my opinion would be not guilty, and I wouldn’t give a rat’s a** what the other jurors think. Accidents happen. You people who are so concerned about looking at it from an indifferent point of view are cold-hearted sons of bitches. You’d better hope the same thing never happens to you, because you’d definitely sh*t bricks and wish people felt compassion toward you when you’re facing a lengthy jail sentence for something that you had no control over. 

I have a a car. I have also has the experience of being completely reliant on public transportation and have had the privileged of being completely reliant on public trabspoirtation in Paris, Italy, England, Germany and San Francisco. I have made half mile treks from my bus stop to my house carrying groceries and yes, towing an exhausted sqeemish 5 year old along with me. I have not noticed a cultural difference as you seem to be suggesting. My experience has been that there will be people who respect pedestrians and drive defensively (in the CA DMV sense of the word) because they expect people will make mistakes and there are people who for whatever reason kind of don’t give a hoot. And both those types of drivers have been present in each of the environments I have lived.

1) I drive a car currently because I work at San Francisco General where I pretty consistently have shifts that don’t finish until 2 sometimes 3 in the morning- long after public transport has basically shut down for the night. I am not particularly keen on waiting one hour for a night bus in one of the shadier parts of San Francisco at 3 am and then doing the 1.3 mile trek to my house. Doubly so if I’ve just spent 13 hours in the mental ward restraining someone and getting bitten and punched- my defenses are down I don’t trust myself to be able to be alert enough to maintain my safety. Driving is much more of a necessity and a way to keep myself safe given those circumstances than just a convenience  because I am lazy and exhausted. When my car was hit and in the shop for 3 weeks and I was public transport dependent, it sucked and it was exhausting, and I planned around it. I didn’t go and do all of the Costco shopping I wanted to  because I knew I wouldn’t be able to manage getting the bags home. I carpooled home with co workers if it got too late at work etc. Surprisingly this is also what all the non car owners I know in SF do as well. They expect public transport is going to be difficult and they accommodate for that fact.

2) I pretty much pride myself on learning from the bad decisions I have made.Will there be times that when completely unforseen accidents happen? Yes, absolutely. However, this is a chaotic world and it is silly and naive to not expect that accidents will happen and to therefor do what you can to prevent them. I drive a car with a huge amount of safety features and I wear my seat belt. I don’t do that because it’s illegal not to and I see people getting pulled over for not wearing a seat belt. I do that because I know there is always a chance that I might slip up or someone else might slip up and in that scenario I want to be as safe as I can be. 

The parents that I know, that I look up to myself as a parent, are the ones that understand the world is a scary dangerous place and equip their child to to deal with that world in the safest way possible. I look at that road they crossed and I think,if  it’s dark and there’s a 55 MPH speed limit then even unburdened by my kid or groceries I would view it as a safety risk and not attempt to cross…so no way I would then cross it with groceries and my 5 year old in hand. Just won’t happen. 

And Sam sees other people  J-walking all the time, and we have the conversation about when that is an appropriate option and when that is not. And we’ve talked about that enough that I have faith he’s not going to dart out into a freeway with cars going too fast to stop. Is that denying him the experience to learn about all different types of traffic situations and how best to approach them? I don’t think so. I think it’s teaching him that maybe darting across five lanes of traffic going 55 MPH isn’t safe. It’s teaching him, suck it up honey bun, it’s only three blocks to a cross walk in that situation and the slightly higher probability of that being a safer option is  worth that. It’s teaching him that this is the realty of not having a car and you better find a way to accommodate for that or ditch your plans if you don’t like that reality.

Do I feel horrible for this mother. Yes, I just cannot, do not, even want to think about what it must be like to lose a child. Do I think vehicular manslaughter is kind of a trumped up B.S charge? Yeah, I do. Have I J-walked into traffic before? Yeah, I won’t lie, the bus was coming, I was across the street, I didn’t want to miss it. Then again it was broad day light, I was highly visible, and traffic was congested and not really going that fast. Is anyone here really going to argue that it sounds safe to cross five lanes of traffic going 55 MPH with your hands full and three kids just because everyone else is doing it? Doubtful. Part of parenting a toddler is having a small amount of paranoia  when faced with things that could harm your kid (like fast moving vehicles) and that seems to have been missing here. 

Re-plan cities as much as you like so that cross walks are closer to bus stops but until we get better at educating our kids about how to be safe in traffic (Rule #1 Don’t run into traffic) and until we get better at recognizing what constitutes a legitimate safety risk and what doesn’t nothing is really going to change- there will still be parents who don’t flinch at having to cross a freeway with a toddler and there will still be 4 year olds who subsequently learn that darting into traffic is ok and do so.

People don’t get charged with anything for jaywalking. All you can get is a ticket, and half the time cops don’t even waste their time with that. I’ve jaywalked right in front of them and they don’t seem to care. 

Yeah, like YOU would walk your happy ass 20 minutes out of your way with groceries in your arms and 3 kids in tow to use crosswalks and a traffic light if your home is just a one minute trot across the street. It’s easy to make such righteous “I’m a responsible parent and she’s not” comments when you’re not in the same shoes. But I bet if you were in this woman’s shoes, you wouldn’t be sitting on your high horse looking down at her in judgement. Jerk.

and that’s assuming she was legally jaywalking at all.

What Jennifer is saying is that a hit and run can happen anywhere, even at a safe crossing. I have almost been hit several times using the crosswalks from the parking lot at my college to the campus. Some of the idiots who nearly mowed me down were talking on their cell phones, texting, and some looked right at me and didn’t bother to stop when they saw me in the middle of the street. They expected ME to jump out of their way. So it doesn’t matter whether someone has had however many beers or is sober and can see perfectly well. It can happen ANYWHERE at ANY time.

You obviously have never tried to walk any distance with a tired 4 year old.
 

Really? You’ve never jaywalked before? I assume you’ve never felt like walking out of your way to use a crosswalk was inconvenient. I bet you’re a real law-abiding citizen, which is why you think it’s so irresponsible that she didn’t use a crosswalk. Btw, you might want to adjust your halo. It looks a little crooked.

but not necessarily the death of her child who, upon darting out at a crosswalk instead, also very likely would have been killed.  but I guess in this case she should just stay home forever and not go outside or let her kids play tag.

Jerry L. Guy, the driver who admitted hitting the child when pleading guilty to hit-and-run, served a 6-month sentence. He was released Oct. 29, 2010, and will serve the remainder of a 5-year sentence on probation, according to Cobb court records.Nelson was attempting to cross at the intersection of Austell Road and Austell Circle with her three children when her son was struck by a car, said Savoy. The child later died from his injuries. Nelson and her younger daughter suffered minor injuries and her older daughter was not injured.Guy confessed to having consumed “a little” alcohol earlier in the day, being prescribed pain medication and being partially blind in his left eye, said David Simpson, his attorney.”This still effects [Jerry] to this day,” Simpson said. “It is tragic all around.”Guy was originally charged with hit and run, first degree homicide by vehicle and cruelty to children. Charges were later dropped to just the hit and run charge.Court records show that Guy was previously convicted of two-hit-and-runs on the same day, Feb. 17, 1997.The first hit-and-run also happened on Austell Road, but when Guy fled from that scene he hit another car, seriously injuring that driver and passenger, records show.Guy pleaded guilty and received a two-year prison sentence, but was out in less than a year, according to the Department of Corrections website. 1997 he was drunk and stoned on pain medication she didn’t receive a fair trial at all her civil rights to a fair and speedy trial where violated she didn’t have a jury of her peers at all no african americans where on the  jury at all for her trial there is no justice for her or her son at all 

Oh, but in these days, who’s to say she had a neighbor she could actually trust?  Who’s to say there was another place to shop?  The store location is definitely not at fault for the bus, I’m sure she didn’t go completely out of her way when somewhere closer would have done the trick.  You know what my neighbors are like?  I know them, I’ve introduced myself, I take a few small welcome to the neighborhood things to the new ones.

My closest neighbor whom I could actually ask has bipolar disorder and in a fit of madness has hacked away all her hair before.  I don’t think I want to trust my son with her.  Another neighbor down the hill was famous for helping other parents in the neighborhood exchange-watching each others’ kids.  Fortunately, my son wasn’t a little girl and I wasn’t predisposed to trust people that seem on the up and up (I was molested by a church leader and prison guard as a girl).  Turns out Mr. Helpful was using all of the really young neighborhood girls for child pornography and has been arrested and convicted of it.

And these days, maybe you do have neighbors who are trustworthy and can do it, but you never can tell.  It’s incredibly naive of you to suggest shopping somewhere different would have changed things and that she actually had someone she could get to take care of her children.

april this is what that piece of garbage got when he went to court Jerry L. Guy, the driver who admitted hitting the child when pleading guilty to hit-and-run, served a 6-month sentence. He was released Oct. 29, 2010, and will serve the remainder of a 5-year sentence on probation, according to Cobb court records.Nelson was attempting to cross at the intersection of Austell Road and Austell Circle with her three children when her son was struck by a car, said Savoy. The child later died from his injuries. Nelson and her younger daughter suffered minor injuries and her older daughter was not injured.
Guy confessed to having consumed “a little” alcohol earlier in the day, being prescribed pain medication and being partially blind in his left eye, said David Simpson, his attorney.
“This still effects [Jerry] to this day,” Simpson said. “It is tragic all around.”
Guy was originally charged with hit and run, first degree homicide by vehicle and cruelty to children. Charges were later dropped to just the hit and run charge.
Court records show that Guy was previously convicted of two-hit-and-runs on the same day, Feb. 17, 1997.
The first hit-and-run also happened on Austell Road, but when Guy fled from that scene he hit another car, seriously injuring that driver and passenger, records show.
Guy pleaded guilty and received a two-year prison sentence, but was out in less than a year, according to the Department of Corrections website.

Let’s see,night has fallen. A group- not just mom and her kids- have left the bus and are crossing en mass- meaning very visible- the highway. The child darted out after another girl, so was not in the safe group. I’ve had my kids dart into a street or parking lot unexpectedly more than once. Apparently, people crossed here all the time. From the map, it is not unlike many of the roads around here, where many bus stops are a half mile or so from crosswalks,where crosswalks even exist. You see a bus, or a crowd on the median near a stop, and unimpaired driver slows and watches out- this is a college town, and college students are worse than 4 year olds.
All you folks blaming mom- well,I’m a horrible mom too. I would have stayed in the crowd for the protection of visibility and jaywalked with my kids and groceries, especially after the long day these kids had had. Tired kids walking another 3/4 mile to get home is a recipe for something random to send one off into the road. I would,using my experience as both a rider of buses and a driver who has to dodge pedestrians, have made exactly the same choice as this mom. Especially when I could see headlights coming to determine when I could cross. Unless you keep your kid on a leash (which I have done), you can never be 100% sure your child will practice good street safety. I’ve waited at lights with my kids, and had one start across on green, though it was also green for turns and not safe, and yelled stop,only to tell them to run across because they went to far before they actually stopped. My heart stopped. If a truck had barrelled around the corner, or run a light, my kid would have been hit. Would you convict me of homicide because I chose to walk down a street with my child?  My daughter had a seizure and drowned. After a year of legal BS, the judge ruled the case should never have even come to court, we were good parents and this was a terrible tragedy. I think the jury should have ruled the same. This is a terrible tragedy, for a mom doing the best she could, making the best choices she could. Sometimes your best isn’t good enough. My daughter wouldn’t have drowned if we had not let her play for an hour in the tub- but she could get out, she could swim for that matter,and she wanted to. She wouldn’t have drowned if we had sat in the bathroom with her (which was the prosecutor’s problem). My parents certainly didn’t sit with me at that age. I doubt many do. My brother wandered off,and we finally found him shopping with play money, having crossed a 4 lane highway. Short of chaining him to his bed, or handcuffing him to my mom, keeping track of him was impossible. We got lucky. Most parents are lucky with what kids do, despite anything we can do to prevent it. This mom wasn’t lucky. Convicting her for homicide is an injustice.

My advice to Gary: Read the article. No husband is mentioned. Hands contain groceries. Here’s a hint- if you wish to blame the mother, use some facts and logic,not sexist twaddle. I’ve been with one child, hands free, walking on a sidewalk and had my kid dash into the street for some reason or another. You can’t always catch them before they are at risk. I’ve been crowded on a sidewalk waiting for a signal and had a kid run out into the street, thinking it safe- I couldn’t get to him because I was jammed in with the adults,he dodged between legs. She and her fellow bus riders were crammed on a 3 foot median. If she’s watching traffic, her son easily was out in the street before she could even say anything. 

How about if you are driving on a busy street that has bus routes and you note a crowd on the median you slow down and pay attention? I know I do. I also don’t drink beer wile taking pain meds and then drive at night. 

Applause!! My brother was a wanderer- he once took a fistful of play money (he was 3 or 4) and decided to go shopping for mommy. We found him at the nearest grocery store- he’d crossed a 4 lane highway in CA. My little sister was the escape artist. We lived in a small town on main street. She’d vanish from quietly playing on the porch (it was fenced, the gate tied shut) and we found she was crossing the street to the newspaper shop to visit the baby that came to work with the owner- crossing diagonally across an intersection. She was about 18 months. We found her on the roof to the back room once-how she got the window open in the back bedroom I have no clue. Another time, we were moving and daddy had gone back for another load- I thought she was with mommy, mommy thought she was with my brother, brother thought she was with me. First we new she was missing was the state trooper asking us if we were missing an 18 month old. She’d walked close to half a mile, heading toward the old house “to help daddy”….she was on the shoulder of a highway..you haven’t lived until you are a 5th grader walking a crying little sister home while a police car slowly follows you. 
My youngest has DS, and is both non verbal and very short. So he looks maybe 5, but is 8. He wanders, but he always knows where he is, and where he’s going. Unfortunately, his apparent age has gotten us in trouble at street fairs when he’s taken off for the booth he wants to go to. The only solution is either to take his younger cousin,and charge him with keeping her from wandering (he’s very good at that) or threatening him with wearing his leash. 

I dunno how ruined the driver’s life can be…this was his third hit and run, the second one where he severely injured folks, and he got 6 months. He admitted to having had a couple beers and was on pain meds, meaning he shouldn’t have been driving. Having crossed  many streets after exiting a bus, usually it is safest to cross with everyone else, so there is more visibility to oncoming traffic. I think you need a new handle.

It’s 3/10 mile to the signal, then 3/10 mile back, so 6/10  mile total…add in the distance across the street,and you have nearly 3/4 mile, which is going to take 40 minute with a tired 4 year old-I know this from experience. They move really fast in short bursts, but have short little legs,so they have to take twice as many steps as an adult. 

[...] the prosecutor) had ever so much as taken the bus in their city. Not even once. To quote from the Transportation for America blog They had never taken two buses to go grocery shopping at Wal-Mart with three kids in tow. They had [...]

Bullpoop daniela.  My child at 2 1/2 followed a puppy away.  It only took a second for her to make it out of my sight.  Children do these things all the time. 

And I myself have seen a crowd move across a street where a child (or adult) could think it’s OK

So you think making an example of her is “what justice is for”. 

I have a brother and sister in law who would say the same thing.  They have no children and have become some of the most condescending, self centered, people I know.  They would want to “make an example”.  When they die they will be burried and forgotten…   

Now im pissed …Why they have middle class whites who have never taken a bus. judge her …There is no cross walk so what is she to do Fly across the street i mean Really what the hell is going on with the Justice system????Justice FAIL>>>>>>

This is a crying shame for this woman – after reading up and looking at the map – all I could think of how absurd to do this to this grieving mother.  Maybe it should be turned around, and she should sue the city for not accommodating a cross walk – being there has been so many deaths there.  I understand why she is being charged, she broke the law plain and simple.  But so many have broken that law without incident.  So sad it had to come to this but could of been preventable by the city.  My condolences to this mother.

Who’s judging her?  I just happened to come across this and sorted by newest first.

[...] bus stop, but to cross legally — though not necessarily safely — she and her young kids would have had to walk a third of a mile down this unsavory street to a major intersection, cross, and walk that same distance back. This is an all too common problem [...]

Ooops just flagged myself, that was a mistake.

The mother still put the child in the path of harm by directing him to jaywalk. if it wasn’t the drunk driver it could have been any of the other drivers on that road. 

It’s unfortunate, but her actions put a child in danger and lead to his death. legally, I see no reason she shouldn’t be convicted of at least child endangerment. 

This unfortunatley does not surprise me at all.  My nephew was murdered almost 4 years ago in Cobb county by a man robbing the Game Stop store where my nephew worked.  FOUR years ago, and still no trial!!!!!  How long does it take to convict someone in the county????  This poor mom lost her son and SHE needs to go to jail for something that wasn’t her fault????  Come On……….where is common sense???  She should not go to jail, but others need to have their trials!!!!!!!

I’m sorry but that is not right in any way. How can they charge her with that crime when she did not hit the child. Yet they will let the man who really did hit the child go free after a few months. This  justice system these days is just messed up. first we let a mother go free after not calling the cops about her child missing. Then we try to put one away saying she hit her killed hers when she was not the driver or driving. Please someone tell me what is next cause this is just mess up anymore.

I had a near close call with my Son when  he was just about the same age.Thank God the dricer had time to stop. Please do not let this mother suffer anymore than she has. if Casey Anthony could get away with such outlandish behavior when her daughter was so called missing than this is not justice for this grieving Mother..

Because an assumption in law is that a legitimate court or solvern government can do no wrong.  We all know better… but must pretend.

If a judge makes a decision that he doesn’t have authority for, he does not have subject matter jurisdiction.  When a judge does not have subject matter jurisdiction, he is considered an individual, not a legitimate “court”.  But if his act is a criminal act, he is subject to legal process without protection of the state (rarely do we see that).  Political office is the same (except we pretend they will get us out of this mess). 

Similarly in theory, a solvern government cannot commit (a legal assumption)… a criminal act.   A judges acts without authority are supposed to be void, but instead, the disciplinary commissions have stopped enforcing the “rules”, allowing open, known manufactured evidence and fraud in court.  Honest services are a thing of the past in government and courts.

The punishment is not fitting the crime, this is overcharge – she should of got a ticket.  She was not the driver nor was under the influence.  What needs to be addressed is getting a crosswalk there, and questioning the DA’s reasons for overcharge.  They find themselves in a pickle with the City not addressing the issue and cover it up by over charging.  Now that’s a joke and very obvious.

Also, I would like to add – that the author of this post is instigating more racism by saying the jury was white.  He/She is wrong!!!   When are people going to stop using the race card?   She was judged by per peers (WE ARE ALL HUMAN BEINGS) – tell me why the writer cannot see it as it really is?  Unless the writer is still living with a state of mind of slavery.  When are people going to stop with this non-sense.  That’s exactly what the writer is:  provoking and adding fuel to the fire by keeping the past alive instead of moving forth with a positive attitude to teach the young children of today that this should not be tolerated.  But no no no  –  I say grow up and be a focused minded adult with looking at the future with a more positive direction.  How sad and what a joke.  We have people of every race in the political arena, doctors, lawyers—-imagine how those intelligent people would read this and think – what a provoking twisted mind people still carry in the life.

his sentence was also much less than hers despite the fact that he admitted to drinking

Another typical case where lower-income people get completely fucked over. 

Another typical case where lower-income people get completely fucked over. 

But it still should NOT be based on a group of so-called “peers” who have NO clue about what a group of people with whom they cannot relate (because of their lack of experience with this group or by choice) decides.  Ever heard the saying, “Walk for a day in my shoes”?

[...] Notes and Comment Blog Punishing people for not having a car. Prosecuting people for not driving. Teaching a lesson to pedestrians and bus-takers. Nelson, 30 and African-American, was convicted on the charge this week by six jurors who were not [...]

In the safety world there are root causes and contributing factors.  Root cause is the location of the bus stop – put the city engineer in jail!  Contributing factor(s), human nature will dictate that people will take the risk of jaywalking instead of walking that far to a cross walk- especially when the late night risk out weighs the perceived jaywalking risk.  And the drunk driving drug using worthless piece of crap operating a vehicle (more than once) … no words necessary, it should be a no brainer.

So are we going to start prosecuting parents for homicide every time a child dies from a preventable injury? A lot of kids die from riding on ATVs. In many cases they are in violation of the law, or definitely common sense, and there are few reasons to “need” to ride an ATV–the mother in this case had a much more compelling reason to do what she did. I’ve never heard of those parents getting convicted of homicides.

So are we going to start prosecuting parents for homicide every time a child dies from a preventable injury? A lot of kids die from riding on ATVs. In many cases they are in violation of the law, or definitely common sense, and there are few reasons to “need” to ride an ATV–the mother in this case had a much more compelling reason to do what she did. I’ve never heard of those parents getting convicted of homicides.

this is a discrace this woman should be home with her children the drunk should have a life sentence

omg!!  i just saw this on yahoo and read the story, this is just outrageous!!  how in gods name can you say this woman is responsible for a half blind drunken idiot doped up on pain meds hitting and killing her child??  if she was at a crosswalk he would have still come barrelling through and still hit the child, he already hit two other people in the same day!!  are you people for real??  part of the kkk or just plain racist??  how can the jury all have been upper middle class jerks??  where is the justice for this poor woman after losing her child and this man goes free and is still licensed to drive??  my heart goes out to you and i am so sorry for your loss, i am rooting for you to be set, i sure wish i had the authority to set you free because i certainly would

and how many laws have you broken???? probably alot mor then her.

In fact: “Between 1995 and 2005, ATVs killed at least 1,218 children under
age 16.” State laws vary, but I’m very sure that some of those children were riding on or operating an ATV in violation of the law or the helmet law. I wonder if a single parent has been prosecuted.

she shouldn’t have gone to trial in the first place any buttwipe would know that small children are easily excitable, i just don;t get how they can hold her responsible that this man plowed her child down after he already plowed into 2 others in the same day!!

SHE HAS NOT BEEN SENTENCED YET..at least get the *FACTS* straight before posting (that’s what this is all about–HER SENTENCE)…..which the Judge will rule on in a few days

I wanna know who her lawyer is, because he/she is ONE POS to have put her in this position….she didn’t pay off the right people…especially in Suburban Atlanta…..it’s all about the BENJAMINS!!

Ah, here we are. Perfect. Compare this story to the one above. It’s even in GA.

http://www.firehouse.com/news/news/georgia-atv-accident-driver-faces-homicide-charge

” A woman whose car rammed into an all-terrain vehicle laden with
children was charged with vehicular homicide and drunk driving as the
community grieved for the five youngsters who died…Coranne Nelson, celebrating her 14th birthday, had been taking her
five friends for a ride on the family ATV when the accident occurred. Authorities say Amanda Michelle Troupe, 29, crossed the center line
about 9 p.m. Saturday before hitting the four-wheeler, designed to carry
one person. Killed, along with Nelson, were: Dustin Varnedore, 11, and his
13-year-old sister, Kayla; Lindsay Joiner, 13; and Courtney Arsenault,
10…None of the children was wearing a helmet.”

And then note:

“Georgia law states that any operator of a motorcycle, scooter or moped
must wear a helmet, regardless of age or experience. This law is largely
due to the number of motorcycle and ATV accidents and fatalities that
occur in the state. The law extends to public roads, where few ATVs are
legally allowed to be driven, as well as private property and courses.”

So where are the homicide charges for the parents who let their unhelmeted kids under age 14 out onto the road on an ATV designed to carry one driver only? Oh, wait, we charged the DRIVER with homicide? Huh.

I’m not sure which state this happened in, and I hear many here saying KKK or racist, where I live – yes there is some racism, but I don’t think as bad as other states, I do know that I am very naive to what other people in some states have gone through.  So sad that people still have that hate in their hearts as far as going this far with this poor lady.  I agree, this woman should be home with her children.  I’m praying this will result for her freedom.  Go figure some lawyers and DA’s who don’t think of what they are doing.  Makes no sense at all.

The way the Jury system works here  and make decision for ones right and wrong.I would say better choice is to toss a coin and decide.I see no difference ,decisions is still unpredictable in both cases.
Take the case of casey anthony ,oj simpson and the case of this bereaved mother.

It’s very unfortunate to see this kind of thing.

No parent or person is perfect and to suggest that you have never taken a “short cut” at any point in your life is absurd. The only difference that nothing accidentally happened to you at that time. People make mistakes and to punish this mother anymore than she already is by losing a child and being seperated from the other too is heartless. So lets not only punish this mother, but the kids who have no lost a sibling and a mother the only person that  has been constant in her their lives. Don’t throw stones because your situation may change just as quickly as this mother’s did.

Absolutly RIDICULOUS! She should get another trial just for the simple fact that it wasn’t a jury of here peers! Are they now throwing constitutional rights out the window!?

That’s a real idiotic remark considering the most she is guilty of is Jaywalking!

That’s a real idiotic remark considering the most she is guilty of is Jaywalking!

Really he did nothing wrong, since when is it legal to mix alcohol and prescribed meds and get behind the wheel? Give us a break!

First thing,Why why why on earth would you subject Raquel Nelson to anymore pain hasn’t she been through enough at the hand of the City anybody can look at that crossing and see that there needs to be extra cross walks and caution light at any point where a street in some way leads into a area of living pedestrian.
I really don’t get this it’s not like she said i going to endanger my kids no no i say what other option did the city leave her.oh i got it walk another mile with three little children where there is a legal cross walk in which she still has to cross street with 3 children. I’m saying that all see is paint on the road that is to signal a safe zone…. yeah right… and as i said before why,why,why would you all choose to hurt Raquel Nelson any more you may as well stand on her head and spin on it if the courts let’sthis decision stand.

Oh they gave him some girl scout cookies and a fine while wishing him a safe day…i’m pissed

I suggest everyone check out the Fully Informed Jury Association at http://www.fija.org.

A juror’s right is to decide whether the case or the law is just and convict or not accordingly.  If they believe the law is unjust, they can refuse to convict, even with overwhelming evidence of the law being broken.  That’s how unjust and immoral laws are overturned.

It’s how prohibition was forced to be overturned in the 30′s.  The jury is the final check in the system of checks and balances. 

I suggest everyone check out the Fully Informed Jury Association at http://www.fija.org.

A juror’s right is to decide whether the case or the law is just and convict or not accordingly.  If they believe the law is unjust, they can refuse to convict, even with overwhelming evidence of the law being broken.  That’s how unjust and immoral laws are overturned.

It’s how prohibition was forced to be overturned in the 30′s.  The jury is the final check in the system of checks and balances. 

Long ago Mr. Badazztrukker.   

Indiana gave my stolen property to the thief then certified the case with known, fabricated defense evidence.  11 proper requests to stop defense attorney fraud could not get analysis of the issue. The burden of proof was shifted to over a month after the theft was reported and stolen property found. 

My issue, that the burden of proof is when the crime happened, not a month later when the defense attorney fabricated a defense… was ruled “is not cogent”… therefor the cover up scheme in August accounts for the theft in July.  I was divested of property worth $70k and I’m supposed to be civil about the open fraud by multiple judges.

Fact and law do not matter to a determined judge.  He knows “discipline” is a NON-ISSUE for him. 

Bus stops should only be located at crosswalks in a high traffic, hi speed area! I’m glad i don’t live in Georgia or for that matter any state, city or county that would prosecute a grieving mother for an accident!  Wake up America, where is the common sense?  It makes me sick that we let real criminals off the hook or plea there way out with time served and we prosecute someonefor this! 

Is there an ordinance (law) that makes her crossing the street there “jaywalking” or is that just an assumption being stated over and over with no proof?  Has anyone ever been ticked at the spot? 

It’s clear there are intersecting roads at the site, bus stopps in both directions and I’ve never seen it illegal to cross at an intersecting road. 

Before you comment about it being “illegal” and “jaywalking”, please confirm that it is in fact illegal.   

there is no official report of the driver being intoxicated. It was a hit and run, period. Jerry Guy (the driver) wasn’t even found out till days later when a friend recognized the description of the driver, and vehicle on a news report. Even “IF” Jerry Guy was intoxicated, there would be no way to prove it days later.

There is no report of Jerry Guy admitting to
drinking beers, or taking any drugs. those are accusations, and
assumptions made by bloggers.

how many rich celebrities where in Michael Jackson, or O.J. Simpsons Jury?

What Kind of Fing idiot are you Rik Waldo Mannix.  You are dumb as f&^K.  Now, If the driver wouldn’t have been impaired that might be a different story. It’s just the GA justice system again racist as it is at work. Have you ever taken public transportation???  You sir are Stupid, you and fing dumb truck.

I am always overwhelm with Cobb County Justic.  This is not the only outrageous case that has come out of that community.  It is unfortunate that memembers of the community continues to turn a deaf ear on what goes on a their court house.  I am in tears to know that this lady, whom has lost her 4 year old child, will received a double punishment.  Why did the prosecutor bring this case to trial.  It’s easy to convict a black person.  I hope she has a lawyer who will file an appeal.  An all white jury is not a jury of her peers.  I remember Cobb County from ’1980.  It was a town filled with racism and hate toward blacks.  When blacks moved in “White” flight took off.  Whites moved to Kennesaw and further North.  The quality of the judges remained the same.  Cobb is not simply conservates, it is hateful, racial, and separate.

I don’t know where the judge, jury, her lawyer or you did research but it looks like crossing the street where she did is legal.  That’s right, there is only “jaywalking” only if you cross between two lights and there are no other intersections or if you cross diagonally.

http://peds.org/resources/pedestrian_right_of_way/

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Austell+Road,+Austell,+GA+Raquel+Nelson&hl=en&ll=33.909157,-84.560759&spn=0.004888,0.01545&sll=34.02967,-84.464372&sspn=1.249613,2.90863&t=h&z=17

Now, if they did not research this well enough charges should be
brought up against the judge, jury, and her lawyer due to negligence.  At least a dropping of charges and center of town stocks plus tar and feathering!!!

Our constitution tell us that we have a right to be judge by our peers.  A jury of all white in Cobb County is not a jury of a black person peers or mexican’s peer.  A white jury in Cobb County is a lynching-guaranteed conviction for the prosecutor.  The mother should be afford the chance to be judge by someone who know what it is like to have tired children, traveling long hours on a bus line and having no convenience cross walk.  I have travel thru the county for over 20 years.  It is difficult find a clear area to cross.  As I type this, parents with children, black, white, and mexican heritages are all cross in an unmark space. The Anonymous Coward should judge cobb county justice for what it is.

According to this documentation and where she lived, she didn’t break any laws at all if she paused like she said.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Austell+Road,+Austell,+GA+Raquel+Nelson&hl=en&ll=33.909157,-84.560759&spn=0.004888,0.01545&sll=34.02967,-84.464372&sspn=1.249613,2.90863&t=h&z=17

http://peds.org/resources/pedestrian_right_of_way/

That is just disgusting that a mother who lost her child could be sent to prison and the person who killed her child only gets 6 damn months?!!  What is wrong with the world today that people can kill innocent kids and not even have to pay for their crimes?!!  There is no such thing as a justice system apparently.

I am sorry but just because the jury was white doesn’t mean anything. Come on people. Not everyone is racist and just because they found her guilty as such doesn’t make them racist either. No one knows the jury, how they live their lives, if they have to take a bus or not. This writer seems very judgmental towards white people. This writer doesn’t know each and every juror personally so how can they assume as much?  People are really bringing back racism back faster than it was diminishing. White people and all other races live in low income areas not just black people. That being said If I was on the jury I for one would have voted NOT GUILTY. I don’t see how they came to that verdict but wow. This poor woman! No one should have to go through what she is going through. They need to make a cross walk there for everyone’s safety. I send my prayers to her and her family. To the drunk driver your a loser and he should have to have to go to prison for the rest of his life. We need to change how things work as having more than one conviction of dui is too much. It is not fair. 

 6 months in jail, and he’s already out.  Didn’t even lose his license.  Yet the mother who was trying to get her kids home can potentially get 3 years, 6x the jail time of the drunken bastard who hit them.  Where is the justice?

In the state of Georgia, ALL traffic violations are misdemeanors. So having expired tags or going 5 over the speed limit could hypothetically land someone in 12 months in jail. There is no uniform sentencing or unified bail schedule like you might find in other states. That said, although the maximum penalty is 36 months (12 months for each count) I highly doubt she will serve any more than probation. Most likely, i would expect a suspended sentence from the judge. Anything above that would be cruel and unusual punishment and be appealable. Regardless, it should be appealed, as there is an unmarked crosswalk at Austell Circle and Austell Road. The next nearest bus stop is at Austell and Kay Road/Sandtown Road, 650 feet away, and that is a 4 corner intersection, with an inarguable marked crosswalk there.

The unintended consequence is that rather than putting a pedestrian crosswalk (with adequate warning), the bus stop might just be ripped out. This is what has happened in California after a court case, Bonanno vs. CCCTA, that says that transit agencies have some liability for bus stops at unsafe locations. Local transit agencies have been systematically ripping out bus stops on arterial streets where they are not at traffic signals, in order to avoid liability. This results in half mile or even one mile gaps in bus stops in suburban areas, even when there are dense housing developments between the signalized intersections. In this case, it would now be a 2/3 mile distance between stops, from Cunningham Road to the south and Cochran Road to the north. The apartment complex would now have no bus stops and be 1/3 a mile away from either intersection. While prosecuting someone for this tragedy is uncalled for, transit advocates need to be careful not to end up hurting transit in the longer run, as it becomes less convenient to riders.

This woman’s only crime was jaywalking. Her child darted away from her, as 4 yr olds are apt to do. The same thing could have happened as she was walking down the street w/her kids.It was a horrible tragedy for Ms. Nelson and her entire family. How 12 people could find her guilty of anything beyond jaywalking is inconceivable. Wonder what they would have done with Case Anthony.

he got a whopping 6 months .. for a THIRD DUI.  wanna bet he had the big bucks to buy his “justice”?

[...] [...]

was it drunk driver?    did police given breath test ?  im curiousity?  what if driver  texting cell? 
anything can happen also i see  road pics shown that big problem..  there’s no sign and jaywalking on that street..  whats speed limit on that road?  blame to community service for road  transportation and jaywalking.  she needs to sue  street who respsonsbibilty for this bus drop off i dont see a jaywalking .. there’s 2  bus drop off on both sides of road.. no jaywalking ??  this is wrong.. i am sad for her kid. very sorry .  the traffic for bus drop off  on both sides needs more  attention for acrossing road and jaywalking and signs.. i dont see that street is all blank..  that the problem ..    i see notice the problem . what they are thinking?

Ok, I have a LOT to say about this, especially to kujoe76 below.  First of all, I have LIVED in Cobb county, so I know of what I speak.  Let’s get that clear up front.  I am a white man and am the first to cry foul when someone plays the racist card.  Here, that may or may not be true.  What definitely is true, per the news stories, is that the jury was entirely middle class white people (which, in Cobb county, means upper middle class whites who live in areas where public transportation doesn’t run). If you’ve never been to Atlanta, you don’t know that it is a VERY segregated city.  I make no racial statement at all or an opinion about it, I’m just stating that north of the city (for 30 miles) is almost all middle to upper class white suburbs.  Downtown and south is lower class and minority.  That’s just the way it is.  Cobb county (the northwest suburbs) is segregated within that.  North and east Cobb are almost exclusively middle to upper class white neighborhoods with no public transportation (it’s not needed).  From Marietta (the county seat, where the courts are) south and west is almost exclusively lower middle and poor neighborhoods that rely a lot on public transportation.  So that’s what is meant when it is said that the jury could not walk in her shoes.
Now, to the “system” in Cobb county.  This case has gotten INTERNATIONAL attention (it’s in the UK Guardian this week), all of the Atlanta news channels are all over it.  The woman was on the Today show yesterday.  The Marietta Daily Journal (the newspaper of Cobb county), however, which regularly features stories about their heroic prosecutors and judges, has said NOTHING about it…..ever!  The good ol’ boys system is the way it works here.  The sheriff there is known as the #3 toughest sheriff in the US — see the sheriff’s website where they boast about it on the front page.  He’s two behind sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County, AZ infamy.
Cobb has a higher % of people on death row than anywhere else in Georgia.  Many of the judges are corrupt and have been there so long that nobody dares try to unseat them.  The judges contribute to each other’s campaigns, and lawyers who appear before them contribute as well.  The prosecutors, many of them anyhow, are just an extension of the judges, and prosecute for anything and everything they can think of.  As someone else said, there is no normal bond schedule here, like a normal court system.  The judges do whatever they darn well please.
One of the judges threw and 87 year old woman in prison for 3 years recently for a genuine accident where she hit a child.  Thank God the GA Board of Pardons and Paroles saw the lunacy in that and let her out in just under 90 days.  This is the kind of stuff that happens here!  The county has a 98% conviction rate, and I can assure you it isn’t because 98% of people are guilty.  They’re scared to death to go to trial because of this exact type of case and plead just to get probation and try to pick up the pieces.
As far as the sentence for the guy driving the car, I’m not concerned about him.  I had a friend whose son was on probation in Cobb for something extremely minor.  She regularly told me what a HELL it is to be on probation in Cobb.  The officers are well-known for harassment and throwing you back in jail for reasons that would be laughable anywhere else.  So this guy will wish he had just done time…again, not concerned.
But this woman should not be going to jail….period.  I don’t know what happened today in the sentencing, but I just looked at the Cobb jail records, and this woman is not there.  So the judge must have gotten the clear message from all the attention and protesting around this case.
For those of you who ‘ASS’ume that if a jury convicts there must have been a good reason, or that if a grand jury indicts there must be a good reason, or if someone is charged there must be a good reason, or if someone is arrested there must be a good reason, you do yourself and society a disservice….and you DEFINITELY don’t understand Cobb County, Georgia.

This is another case of white and black justice in black and white.  Had Ms Nelson been a white woman and the driver been a black man, what do you think the outcome would have been.  Would the black man have received a sentence of six months for hit and run homicide and would the white woman who lost a child and was injured by a hit a run driver have been prosecuted?  The prosecuter should be tared and feathered.  Another legal lynching!

I just became number 125,598 on that petition!  This is complete LUNACY!!!

And while you’re at it, somebody point this lady towards a good lawyer so she can sue The State of Georgia into putting a crosswalk, and signals at that bus stop!

i know where she is coming from. i take the bus and by the time you get on and off, expesially with kids, you go the easiest way to get home. i dont blam her i would not want to walk around out side at night. this is so stupid. what about the drunk driver.

yes what about the people who design these stops and roads. i have a lot of stops i have to go at least a half of a mile extra to cross a street. they need to get out and ride these buses and see what it takes everyday.

A jury of all white people?  In Atlanta?  What would they know about riding the bus?  This poor mother is grieving for her child, and a some idiot judge is going to put her in jail? I’m white, and I’m ashamed to say so right now.  Gee let me guess, the man that has two prior convictions is white and so is the judge?  Please, give this mother a break!  Please show some compassion for her.  As a decent human being!  What’s going to happen to her other children if you take her away?  Please!

No reports? ABC News reported it. MSNBC reported it. The Daily Mail reported it. NY Daily News reported it and on and on. They reported it because Guy (through his lawyer) admitted it. Oh yeah, they also reported that Guy was partially blind and had two previous hit and run convictions.

[...] Location of crash: Google Maps (Based on photot shown in the Transportation for America blog post) [...]

THIS IS INSANE!!!!!!!!!!! I am PRAYING HARD that the Lord sees her through this! Our justice system is SOOOOO BROKEN!!!!!

There you go! The prosecutor should be tarred and feathered for daring to impose the same law upon everyone, African-Americans included! Thanks for saying it openly, so that everyone may read. By the way, my children never dreamed of running into the street – they would tell adults to go get their ball or whatnot and would wait there – they crossed attached to me or other adults until they were both skilled in crossing *and* tall enough (what does one see from the driver’s seat? I seated them and had them answer.) They never gave me a problem with the road, not at 2yrs, not at 4, not at 6…. Yet, I would never have told them to cross such a highway, much less after dark. And if we had been in the unfortunate driver’s position, the impact is unavoidable. I doubt that lady would have allowed a dog – which has excellent hearing and reflexes that no human child can dream of, and absolute obedience which no child will ever have – to cross like that. How many of you, who support the lady, would go to the intersection with Ms Nelson and have her accompany your dog, after dark, to the other side? Let alone if the dog was not on a leash? 

[...] Looking at the presumed location of crash on Google Maps, Raquel’s crossing location fits those legal requirements; the adjacent crosswalks were not signalized so she was totally justified in crossing at that location. (This location is based on the oblique photo shown in the Transportation for America blog post) [...]

[...] Photo Source: Transportation For America [...]

[...] In case you haven’t been following, Raquel Nelson is an Atlanta mother who was convicted of vehicular homicide when a hit-and-run driver killed her youngest son while she was crossing a street with her three children from a bus stop to her apartment complex. Read our initial post here. [...]

She got probation and new trial in hit-run case.  She should not even get that.  A ticket would of been more appropriate.  How sad she has to go threw this ugliness.

http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/mom-gets-probation-and-1042791.html?bigName=Phil+Skinner&bigPhotog=Phil+Skinner&bigCap=In+this+May+2010+photo%2c+Raquel+Nelson+tends+to+a+shrine++for+her+son+A.J.+Newman%2c+4%2c+who+was+killed+April+10%2c+2010%2c+by+a+hit-and-run+driver+near+the+family%27s+home+on+Austell+road.&bigDeclCap=&bigCred=AJC&bigUrl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.ajc.com%2fmultimedia%2fdynamic%2f01023%2fPedestrians_0514_a_1023629c.jpg&superSizeImage=y

I could add to that – add those homes/apartments so close to use a busy
road like that.  What perplexes me, if they are going to build there and
the city knows it – then where are the stop signs or at least a yellow
light blinking sensing activity of people in the area, the speed limit
there looks to be 45-50 per the looks on the videos.  Why is the city
dropping the ball with this and not putting a cross walk with lights and
sensors.

To be it sounds like the prosecuting attorney’s were trying to cover up
the mess of guilt that the city should of done years ago.

Shame on the City of this town.  And more shameful how they all worked up a plan to hurt this woman even more.  It’s ludicrous.

A petition should be developed for this woman to refute the probation and second trial.

They should. 
There was a case I can attest to, in which a person (the race is irrelevant) brought her kid in ER for a very similar case to Ms Nelson’s. The boy survived his injuries, About a week after having been sent home, back he was in the same ER after same accident. He survived again, with neurological damage. 
That person (the race is irrelevant) did not have this child nor any of her other children removed. I guess only death does. 
Time we demand from parents the same guarantees that animal shelters demand when stray dogs are “adopted”. 

They should. 
There was a case I can attest to, in which a person (the race is irrelevant) brought her kid in ER for a very similar case to Ms Nelson’s. The boy survived his injuries, About a week after having been sent home, back he was in the same ER after same accident. He survived again, with neurological damage. 
That person (the race is irrelevant) did not have this child nor any of her other children removed. I guess only death does. 
Time we demand from parents the same guarantees that animal shelters demand when stray dogs are “adopted”. 

Uly, it’s called walking while black.

[...] jury, as has often been noted, was all white and not transit-dependent. Indeed, Savoy said, the entire pool of 15 jurors they had [...]

[...] Prosecuting the victim, absolving the perpetrators. [...]

[...] like Transportation for America (T4A) took up the cause immediately. T4A's David Goldberg wrote a powerful blog post on the case, following up on reporting by Tanya Snyder at Streetsblog Capitol [...]

I just feel that the charges against her is plain outrageous and stupid. She cant ven greive over the lost of her son because of these charges. I feel that they have no compassion for her situation, and if she is convicted whos going to watch over her kids. Why take a mother away from home for no apparent reason. Its down right wrong and it needs to be addressed.

“Jaywalking” is not a legal term.

“Before the American city could be physically reconstructed to
accommodate automobiles, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as
places where cars belong. Until then, streets were regarded as public
spaces … One tool in this effort was jaywalker. Motordom discovered this obscure
colloquialism in the teens, reinvented it, and introduced it to the
millions. It ridiculed once-respectable street uses and cast doubt on
pedestrians’ legitimacy in most of the street. Though many pedestrians
resented and resisted the term and its connotations, motordom’s campaign
was a substantial success.” — Norton, Peter D., Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street, Technology and Culture 48, 2, pp. 331-359

Those are not intersecting roads. The entry to Somerpoint Apartments is not a road any more than are the other residential driveways that intersect Austell Rd. It’s not illegal to cross there if it’s done safely. (cf. http://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-40/chapter-6/article-5 Georgia Code – Rights and Duties of Pedestrians)

 Seeing that buses dont have stop-signs and Red flashing lights like school buses do which at this point of the intersection there was no physical barrier, all vechiles must make a complete stop and allow the pedestrians to cross. Maybe the city and bus commissions when planning a pick up and drop off site for the buses also plan a cross walk there along with pedestrian yellow lights. If the city cant afford such things…  paint a yellow crosswalk (yellow meaning proceed with cautain) and a P-XING sign prior to it. Dont bus companies have to submit plans on where their stops are? Doesnt the city have to approve them? do the think ” oh someone might need to cross from one to the other?
Jaywalking goes on all over the world and many laws to ban jaywalking, cities only seem to enforce jaywalking bans and charge people with this when fear of a suit against them. True the 3/10ths of a mile walk to the nearest corner would have been safer to do but even at the corner crosswalks no-one ever pushes the button and has the patiences to wait for the safest time to cross. Punishing this mother for the death of her child and to use the ban of jaywalking to do this bothers me. She now has to live with the fact her child is gone.

That would be correct. There is no mention of her being a widow.

My advice to Momma Goose: Read the article. There is no mention of her being a widow.

I see comments that maybe the baby daddys died or bailed on her.  Since none of them wrote about what great care she is taking in raising their children how ’bout she gets her money for shopping by laying on her back.  SHE KILLED HER CHILD.  Let’s report this correctly – he got 5 YEARS and served 6 months.  HER max is 3 years and she got probation for killing her child.  SHE killed her child.  It is unacceptable that any of you think it’s OK for a mother willing to have her children cross the street like this.  She was just shopping along spending money she didn’t have to spend and missed the correct bus that would take her safely home.  She then decided to take the wrong bus and put her children in danger.  SHE KILLED HER CHILD>

You’re a sick pervert. Get some help.

God, how stupid can you be?

How very white of you.

A half a mile is a 30 walk. And it’s a 40 minute walk with groceries and kids.

[...] the prosecutor) had ever so much as taken the bus in their city. Not even once. To quote from the Transportation for America blog They had never taken two buses to go grocery shopping at Wal-Mart with three kids in tow. They had [...]

Good morning, Gary. My assumption is that you must have just awakened from a 50-year nap.

There are ways a woman can have children and not presently have a husband or be a widow. Have you heard of Google? Try these search terms: “Bristol Palin” or “Murphy Brown”.

The only comments I can find by searching the page for “baby daddy” is yours, G. I’ve seen nothing suggesting (plural) “baby daddys [sic]” other than from you. No one else suggested that Nelson is, was, or should be a prostitute (“gets her money for shopping by laying on her back”). People that read the article can see that she is a student at Kennesaw State University.

Nelson did not “take the wrong bus”; she took the next bus. Only someone that has never used public transit would think there was some other “right bus” that might have taken her any closer than her apartment complex.

Since Nelson and her children (along with a group of other passengers) safely crossed the two northbound traffic lanes, I don’t think it’s reckless to think that the two southbound lanes plus the left-turn lane would be safe to cross under the exact same circumstances. No doubt people, including those with children and children alone, routinely cross Austell Rd. on their way to and from Somerpoint Apartments.

 ”If you look at our pedestrian
fatalities map for metro Atlanta (or any other metro, for that
matter) and zoom in, you see that the dead bodies line up like soldiers
along certain corridors – your first clue that the design is not
matching up with the use of the street.”

I disagree….if you look at that map, you’ll see that (as expected) the majority of fatalities occur when pedestrians attempt to use major arterial roads. Take out the fatalities that occurred on arterial roads and interstates (wtf are people doing walking on the interstate anyway?!), and you’ll see the number drop dramatically. I interpret this map as showing data as an “of course!” moment.

Of course pedestrians are more likely to get hit when they are walking/crossing major roadways. I was taught as a child to stay on the sidewalk, cross at the cross walk, and stay off the highways!

Don’t get me wrong, in this case, I think the mother has suffered enough and I hope the driver serves a long time. But as pedestrians, we need to use common sense!

This woman should ask for a new trial, not settle for probation and community service.  If she has a criminal conviction, no matter how little time she does…it is still a criminal conviction.

It appears she was charged with a crime to cover up for the county and bus company since they know people cross there all the time and they have made no provisions for it.  They have no liability if she is convicted of a crime.  Thats why she was charged, I believe.   

She should sue the county and bus company for wrongful death AND intimidation.

Who says there’s no class warfare? This is a prime example right here. A
young boy killed because there is no way for his family to go shopping
safely. Now the family is destroyed by a prosecutio­n determined to
scapegoat the mother, and a jury who has no idea how such a situation
could arise. The children that remain? They’ll be in foster homes, if
they are lucky. They’ll almost certainly be separated.

This family has been destroyed as certainly as if a bomb had landed in their apartment. This is class warfare, literally.

If you “[t]ake out the fatalities that occurred on arterial roads and interstates” from the map you’ll see the number drop to ZERO, WalkingMan. Other roadways are not federally-funded, and thus are not part of the data set from NHTSA.

Dear Moderators,

Why did you delete my post, but then allow that sick, vile post by “G” to stay? Ms. Nelson is already suffering enough without people like “G” viciously slandering her.

Dear Moderators,

Why did you delete my post, but then allow that sick, vile post by “G” to stay? Ms. Nelson is already suffering enough without people like “G” viciously slandering her.

Dear Moderators,

Why did you delete my post, but then allow that sick, vile post by “G” to stay? Ms. Nelson is already suffering enough without people like “G” viciously slandering her.

Guest, while we may not like what “G” had to say, we really only moderate comments where someone a) uses profanity, b) attacks another commenter personally, or c) makes a one-line comment of no substance that usually is also an attack on someone else.

[...] [...]

Sick. Prosecutor Morgan’s e-mail is Barry.Morgan@cobbcounty.org. His phone number is (770) 528-8500.

 This was a hit and run.  They can’t cite him for being drunk without testing him, and they can’t test him if he flees the scene.  He was required by law to stay at the scene.  It was the THIRD hit and run he had committed that day; he had already seriously injured other people.  They can’t legally prove he was drunk, which is why he wasn’t cited.  That is very different from not being cited because he stayed at the scene and they determined he wasn’t drunk.

[...] a major arterial can be difficult, if not downright unsafe. That’s why we are so happy to see the completion of some smart pedestrian safety [...]

This comment has been deleted by the moderator. Please refrain from using profanity in the comments.

The point is that a grieving mother is victimized while doing the best she could do at the time with resources at hand. What are you going to do to stop this? It does not matter if you seek judicial reform,secure resources for the mother and surviving kids, change the policy of transportation,add lights…just do something.

I’m pretty sure he couldn’t miss the fact that he hit 3 people at once

If it tells you something, it should tell you that he fled the scene for a reason. If he had done nothing wrong (such as being drunk) then why would he hit and RUN?

And when was the last time you saw a court case for jaywalking?

Walking a mile down a sidewalk along a busy road is dangerous as well. Especially at night. I think she chose the safer and smarter route in her situation. She put her childen in danger for 2 minutes to cross the road as opposed to 30 minutes where at any time he could get away from her and run into traffic.

Nor is there a mention of a husband. Where are you from? Seriously.. Statistics show that 50% of all marriages will end in divorce, and that’s assuming she was ever married in the first place. Stop assuming everyone is just like you and every child has a happy home living with their mother and father. I have posted several times and from all those postings, you cannot begin to guess anything about who I have or do not have in my life. And since you want to argue the point of whether or not she has a husband, I think it is far more likely that she is NOT married if the article does not mention the father of the child.

Nor is there a mention of a husband. Where are you from? Seriously.. Statistics show that 50% of all marriages will end in divorce, and that’s assuming she was ever married in the first place. Stop assuming everyone is just like you and every child has a happy home living with their mother and father. I have posted several times and from all those postings, you cannot begin to guess anything about who I have or do not have in my life. And since you want to argue the point of whether or not she has a husband, I think it is far more likely that she is NOT married if the article does not mention the father of the child.

If you would walk 30 minutes along the side of a busy highway at night with 3 young children instead, then you have put your children in danger and I would call you an irresponsible “mother”.

Yes, we should all feel sorry for the drunken, high, hit and run repeat offender driver. Poor guy..

The applicable law appears to be 40-6-92 and specifically section (c), which says if there are adjoining intersections that are signal controlled, a person must not walk at anyplace but the crosswalk. 

But look at the arial photo.  There are clearly two intersecting streets that are not signal controlled.  She was not “jaywalking” because there are NOT two adjoining, traffic signal controlled intersections to make her act unlawful.   

What makes you so full of hate or are you just racist?  Apparently people cross there all the time.  It was not “jaywalking” nor was it an illegal act.  I pray God gives you the same consideration you have given this woman. 

Her and the others crossing there are not “jaywalking” and it is not illegal.  The applicable law appears to be 40-6-92.  It is state code, adopted by the City of Atlanta, titled: “Crossing roadway elsewhere than at crosswalk”.
Since there ARE NOT adjoining traffic controlled intersections, section (c) DOES NOT make crossing there a “violation”.  Look at the arial photo, she was within 50 feet of a non -controlled intersection, one on each direction of travel. 

Look up the definition of “adjoining”, before you say she was crossing in violation of the law. 

PROVE SHE VIOLATED LAW, NOT JUST ASSUME SHE DID.  That is what the judge choose NOT to do. 

WHY? 

A ticket for what?  There is no law making her act unlawful.  Georgia Code 40-6-92 is the applicable law, but there are NOT “adjoining” traffic control signals. 

Give her a ticket for what since the law (section (c)) only makes crossing illegal between “adjoining” traffic controlled intersections.  She was clearly near a NON controlled intersection, proving that two siganl controlled intersections are not “adjacent”.   

A ticket for what?  There is no law making her act unlawful.  Georgia Code 40-6-92 is the applicable law, but there are NOT “adjoining” traffic control signals. 

Give her a ticket for what since the law (section (c)) only makes crossing illegal between “adjoining” traffic controlled intersections.  She was clearly near a NON controlled intersection, proving that two siganl controlled intersections are not “adjacent”.   

A ticket for what?  There is no law making her act unlawful.  Georgia Code 40-6-92 is the applicable law, but there are NOT “adjoining” traffic control signals. 

Give her a ticket for what since the law (section (c)) only makes crossing illegal between “adjoining” traffic controlled intersections.  She was clearly near a NON controlled intersection, proving that two siganl controlled intersections are not “adjacent”.   

I would.  Tragic accidents happen and that makes her no less of a responsible person. 

Only a person with no children think that one should, could or does have total control of a child. It’s clear she was overburdened and tired…why didn’t someone offer her a helping hand?   

She committed no “crime” nor did she “jaywalk”.  The applicable code is 40-6-92 and specifically section (c).  She is clearly near a non traffic signal controlled intersection, proving that there are NOT two adjoining traffic signal controlled intersections where they crossed.  She and the others crossing there are not violating law.  If you think they are…prove it… before you assume she violated ANY law. 

 What’s up with charging a person who was not in control of a vehicle with vehicular homicide? I’m white, considered middle class; I would have acquitted her of trumped up charges. How can you convict someone of vehicular homicide if they weren’t driving a car, when a death occurred? BS…

[...] Nelson being charged with vehicular homicide struck a chord with Transportation for America, a coalition supporting an array of transportation policies.  “According to the office of Cobb [...]

You know what they say about assuming?!? So I guess one could know the entire story based on what the media did or didn’t report. I bet you assume that because she was black and had three children that she was a down trodden hood recipient who had never been married or never had a job. God forbid you ever found out that she fell on hard times like many have. Thank goodness that’s never happend to you. Just because there was no mention doesn’t mean it wasn’t maybe he was just a dead beat husband/father. Please don’t comment on things unless you know all the facts.

Jaywalking is the general term for crossing where it is not lawful.  I certainly didn’t make it up (I never said she was jaywalking) and my purpose is not to debate what jaywalking is. My purpose is to analyse the existing (verifiable) law in Atlanta as a reasonable person 

The applicable law “Crossing roadway elseware than at a crosswalk” was adopted by Atlanta.  It is Ga Code 40-6-92, specifically section (c) looks at first glance to apply.  However to make her act unlawful, it requires two “adjacent traffic controlled” intersections.  It matters not that the apartment uses the one, it is still an intersection and there is a turn lane for the other direction.  The two traffic controlled intersections are not “adjacent”, thus her act is not prohibited by that law. 

6 months for a hit and run in which a victim dies? The fact that he never stopped after hitting them is horrible. He also had a history of impaired driving. If he got 6 months then she should get less. To hit someone with your vehicle and not stop is worth 5 years alone. This is an area that was poorly designed and a lot of people cross their. especially in bad weather. In a city that has traffic problems and wants more people to commute, they should have improved their high pedestrian fatalities by now. Two guys in Maryland were racing and hit as well as killed a couple of people. They got ten years and were not under the influence. they even stopped after the accident. What kind of backward A#$ laws are in the state of Georgia? But looking at the rebel flags on the state trooper vehicles I see why this happened.  

6 months for a hit and run in which a victim dies? The fact that he never stopped after hitting them is horrible. He also had a history of impaired driving. If he got 6 months then she should get less. To hit someone with your vehicle and not stop is worth 5 years alone. This is an area that was poorly designed and a lot of people cross their. especially in bad weather. In a city that has traffic problems and wants more people to commute, they should have improved their high pedestrian fatalities by now. Two guys in Maryland were racing and hit as well as killed a couple of people. They got ten years and were not under the influence. they even stopped after the accident. What kind of backward A#$ laws are in the state of Georgia? But looking at the rebel flags on the state trooper vehicles I see why this happened.  

I fervently pray that this conviction will be reversed. This is so outlandish as to be cruel and unusual punishment.

I fervently pray that this conviction will be reversed. This is so outlandish as to be cruel and unusual punishment.

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OMG how could she done that with three kids on her car … http://www.ccmp3.net

Way to go!  Rulebook – 1, Grieving Mother – 0

Way to go Cobb County, why not just kick her in the teeth now that she’s down and out!

Way to go Cobb County!!!  Your first instinct is to throw a rulebook at Ms. Nelson and knowingly destroy what hasn’t already been done by a recidivist harmful criminal!  

Congrats to Cobb County’s very own prosecutor (I would better call him a “persecuter) Barry Morgan for not doing the right thing – in causing undue hardship and unnecessary pain and suffering instead of fixing the problem – send the killer to prison for life and PUT A CROSSWALK…  for the love of sweet Jesus, people are getting dumber the more their phones get smarter =(