Philando Castile's Killer Acquitted

Wasn't suggesting that human life is "priceless."

Only that $500,000 changes nothing except an insurance company's balance sheet, and that only slightly.

If you cause a car accident, your insurance rates rise. If you cause several, your rates rise a lot. This means you'll either pay for the risk entailed in covering you, or you'll be motivated to drive more carefully to get your rates back down.

If you cause car accidents, and your rates don't change, then what motivation do you have to modify your behavior?

By the same token, unless a police department feels the pain of its liability risk, it has little motivation to improve.

granted, 500,000 is ten years of wages - cool. But ten years? Ten years goes by in a flash. Ten years doesn't even cover birth to middle school. Sorry, 500,000 is shit in the grand scheme of things.

Not if you get to the Texas border quickly enough!!!!

I know. Reprehensible. But I figured I would say something before someone else picked up that loose baton and ran with it.

And you claim to have remorse.

the thing is there is no guarantee that someone will survive another ten years anyway.

For example, our state had laws that if a person caused severe injury to someone in a car accident and that person died more than a month later from those injuries, then the person who caused the injury IS NOT RESPONSIBLE for the death.

The thinking is that over a months time, there are enough intervening actors who could be more responsible for the persons death than the one causing the original injury.

Bad law. It's not at all unusual for people to hold on for weeks or even months before succumbing to injuries, especially when they have to undergo repeated surgeries.

"Yes, my client ran over the deceased with a car, causing multiple broken bones, damage to internal organs, massive loss of blood, and brain damage, but who can say if this person's demise--SIX WEEKS LATER IN INTENSIVE CARE UNIT OF THE HOSPITAL--was in any way attributable to my client?"

Doctors in the interim can make mistakes. So can many more medical professionals just for starters.

I learned this in the early 1990s. The father of a guy who was in the band with me had his car sideswiped by a trucker on a bridge. The impact pinned him in his car and set it on fire.

He was burned over 90% of his body. When he died six weeks later I found out then that the truck driver who hit him would not be criminally or civilly liable because of the one month law.

A little common sense is required.

When there's a direct connection between an injury and a person's death, the person who caused it is responsible. If the connection is less direct, the person who caused it may still be responsible, depending on the circumstances.

And that's a perfect example of why it's bad law. There is a very direct link of causality between the driver being sideswiped and his dying in a hospital burn unit six weeks later.

Trucker: "Whew! Thank God he lasted six weeks! I was worried someone was going to hold me responsible for his terrible burns and slow death! But, thanks to that one month law, my conscience is clean!"

Horrific.

That's a horseshit law because your friend's dad wouldn't have even been in the hospital had the truck driver not hit him.


What instrument did you play?

Clarinet. I wasn't half bad. wasn't half good either though.

Ironic that several years later when she was in the band in the 7th-9th grades Annalee played a clarinet as well.

I started off on clarinet through junior high and my freshman year, but I switched to alto sax after I quit playing football.

I was pretty good with both instruments, but didn't really practice enough to be really good.

It was a pretty gruesome accident. IIRC it was in August and rescuers kept collapsing in the 100 degree plus heat trying to free him from his car.

IIRC even after the fire was put out it took something like two and a half hours to get him out of the wreckage.

Very sad. His son was always a pleasant fellow.

Clarinet players represent!
@Dayton3, please please encourage Annalee to keep up with the clarinet. She doesn't need to major in it (or music) in college, but at least do enough to play in a college ensemble and later in a community ensemble. Likewise, it could be good for you (good father/daughter bonding?). I have had too many people tell me when they find out I play clarinet that they played back in middle school but quit and regret it and don't have time to pick it back up.
I've had the opportunity to play all six clarinets (Eb, Bb, Alto, Bass, Contra Alto, Contrabass) with the Oregon Symphonic Band, and it's frankly a sanity check for me, even when I'm not digging the repertoire selection for a given concert

I would like to but I haven't played in literally decades as my clarinet needs hundreds of dollars in repairs. Annalee used one of the school instruments when she played.

My dad bought mine for me though. My sisters thought the clarinet was a "wimpy" instrument but my mom liked it because she felt it could make a wider variety of sounds. I found the huge number of keys to manipulate to be a welcome challenge though. Mine and Annalee's were the B flat clarinets I think they are called.

How do you motivate the police when a settlement will just be worked into their operating budget? A wrongful death's financial burden is meaningless if it's passed on to the department, and thus, the taxpayers.

Start convicting killer cops, and then maybe you'll see a decrease in civilian casualties.

Someone, somewhere (the chief, the police commission, etc.) in the system has to answer for the budget. City managers are going to ask hard questions and demand action when they find out they've got to come up with $50,000 more per month (or whatever) for liability insurance.

Where it's appropriate to do so, sure. But not all wrongful death settlements involve police malfeasance--see the Michael Brown settlement, for example.

Believe me, it's a good investment. Save up the money, get the cork and pads replaces, and the key work adjusted.

Legit

Depending on the quality of the clarinet you own, it may be worth it to fix it up like what Christopher said.

If I'd been born to at least a middle class family, I would've perused that music major.

@Dayton3 what's the make of your clarinet?