Woman faces life in prison for stopping car to help ducks and causing crash that kills two

[flowers]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/06/20/woman-faces-life-in-prison-for-stopping-car-to-help-ducks-causing-crash-that/?intcmp=trending

A Montreal jury ruled Friday against a 25-year-old Quebec woman who was on trial for stopping her car on a busy highway to rescue some ducklings and causing a crash that killed a motorcyclist and his teenage daughter.

Emma Czornobaj faces a maximum sentence of life in prison after she was found guilty on two counts of criminal negligence causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing death.

Defense attorney Marc Labelle said Czornobaj was shocked by the verdict. He wondered how she could be found guilty of criminal negligence in the absence of other contributing factors.

"This was not a race. This was not a person who took a chance and drove drunk," Labelle told the Montreal Gazette after the verdict. "This is not about someone who was speeding and took a risky maneuver."

[Oceander]

More from the article:

Andre Roy, 50, and his daughter Jessie, 16, were killed when Roy’s Harley-Davidson chopper slammed into the rear of Czornobaj's Honda Civic on June 27, 2010.

Seconds earlier Czornobaj, a financial analyst, had stopped her car in the left lane of a provincial highway in Candiac, south of Montreal, after she spotted a group of ducklings on the median, CTV News reported. She got out of her car and tired to herd the ducks into her car.

Roy’s wife Pauline Volikakis was injured when her Yamaha motorcycle also slammed into Czornobaj’s car.

She did something stupid, but it seems to me that the bigger fault lies with the motorcycles:  they didn't leave themselves enough reaction room, something that any sane (i.e., mildly paranoid) motorcyclist knows to do.


I don't see anything criminal here - but that's just me - so I guess the Canucks are just screwed up on this point.  Ms. Czornobaj's negligence - and she was most assuredly negligent - should be left to the civil courts.  Hopefully this will be reversed on appeal.

[Charlespg]

More from the article:

She did something stupid, but it seems to me that the bigger fault lies with the motorcycles:  they didn't leave themselves enough reaction room, something that any sane (i.e., mildly paranoid) motorcyclist knows to do.


I don't see anything criminal here - but that's just me - so I guess the Canucks are just screwed up on this point.  Ms. Czornobaj's negligence - and she was most assuredly negligent - should be left to the civil courts.  Hopefully this will be reversed on appeal.

more here...        http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/widow-tells-court-how-her-husband-died-in-arms-following-crash-1.1852264   ...the driver is idiot ,life in prison does not seem too extreme if what they say  she did is true

[Oceander]

more here...        http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/widow-tells-court-how-her-husband-died-in-arms-following-crash-1.1852264   ...the driver is idiot ,life in prison does not seem too extreme if what they say  she did is true

Have to disagree.  As far as criminal matters go she deserves nothing more than tickets for stopping/parking on a highway and, possibly, reckless driving.  She most definitely does not deserve life in prison.

The motorcyclists were just as negligent as she was and are 50% responsible for their own deaths - sometimes the truth sucks.  When you drive - and especially when you ride - you keep your eyes open and operate your vehicle so that you can avoid obstacles in your path, which is precisely what this woman's car was.  If you rear-end another car you're at fault, even if it unexpectedly stopped short.

This belongs in a civil court with the motorcyclists' estates suing her for negligence; it does not belong in criminal court.

[raml]

She deserves what she got.