Woman convicted of killing her son - not because she killed him but

[TheMagnificentBathykolpian]

because she crossed the road in the 'wrong place' and a HIT AND RUN DRIVER ran them all down. The poor child died and his mother was charged with his murder and convicted.

here

I can't believe it.

It's the U.S., this type of thing happens. If she's been pg too, she's have had an extra charge of murdering the baby...

OMG!!!!

i'm in shock......

Christ. What is the world coming to, really? How can something like this be thought to be justice?

What??

"driver was drinking and had taken painkillers on the night of the accident and was mostly blind in one eye.

He also had a prior conviction for a hit-and-run accident"

He got 6 MONTHS, apparently, when this mother could have been imprisoned for 3 YEARS for jaywalking.

I don't know what to say. Thank goodness that at least there was a public outcry about this.

She broke the law and an innocent child died but charging her with murder is just unbelievable..

They are very tough on jaywalking in the USA. We got shouted at once because we tried to cross the road in the wrong place in Las Vegas, there were hardly any cars on the side street!

Watch yourselves over there!

But, yes it is horrific that she got charged, the child slipped her grasp for goodness sake.
It's not a good time to be a parent in the USA at the moment in some states

This is just awful. :( Wasn't the death of her child punishment enough?

I can understand jaywalking being an offence - it's no doubt in force to ensure pedestrians show due care.

But to make it a bigger offence than a hit-and-run? Even aside of this poor mother's loss, that is absolutely ludicrous. So pedestrians must take care but driver's don't?

I wonder how many pedestrian crossings there actually were in the area? FFS, in some places you're lucky if there's even a pavement.

Links not working. What sentence did she get?

She made a mistake and lost her child - she has been punished enough.

The Hit and Run driver should have had the book thrown at him but instead received a sentence shorter than the mother. Fuck Me.

Horrific, even more so that the driver only got 6 months.

So her daughter has now lost a brother and now her mummy is going to jail - the whole family is going to be so fucked up by this, why on earth did it go to trial and how can all those people, the prosecution service, the judge and the jury all think it is a good idea?? Why also are there still all white juries sitting on cases like this? Utterly depressing.

I'm not at all surprised about this.

It's part of the backlash.

There is a real hatred of mothers out there and their children are being used to
attack them

Women should wake up and realise how much hostility there is out there.

I can guarantee you that this would not have happened to a father who had crossed the road in the wrong place..

This will be crossing the pond soon, like the anti-abortion, banning maternity leave, slutwalk, blah, blah, blaaargh! Oh, yes - it will come.

She also crossed the road there because there was no crossing - the only pedestrian crossing was way off down the road. You don't want to do a half a mile detour with tired children when the bus stop is opposite your flat.

It's f**ked up. The city should be looking, urgently, at traffic calming measures as lots of people need to cross at that point to get from the bus stop to a block of flats across the road. No-one should be prosecuted except the car driver.

Also the woman and her family are black and poor - if she were rich and white there would be no way she would be in this position. F**ked up.

The USA appears to be severely fucked up as far as I'm concerned (see here for how fucked up: compassioninjuvenilesentencing.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/hello-world/. I don't even want to go on holiday there, just in case something happens.

That poor, poor woman. I hope someone steps in to help in some way.

I agree with HerBex,
I'm surprised so many people are surprised. The courts punish women all the time for the slightest discrepancies, but they let men get away with murder..

as we have seen here.

"He also had a prior conviction for a hit-and-run accident."