Op-Ed

[yourmovemonkey]

37. Prayers to your family, H2O Man

I spent this past March in a court room for 2 and a half weeks, while an inexperienced ADA bungled the prosecution of my brother's killer. There were reams of hard evidence, including a blood test that showed a cocktail of drugs that were in the killer's system when he drove my brother off the road. His admission to the police was deemed inadmissible at a pretrial hearing. Ultimately, the jury only found him guilty of driving while impaired, but failed us on the manslaughter count. It's a total contradiction. Everyone in law enforcement that I spoke to said they had never seen a verdict like ours.

I arranged a letter writing campaign to try and influence the sentencing. I also gave a very impassioned victim's impact statement on the day. The judge recognized the miscarriage that had occurred, and did the best he could by sentencing him to the maximum.

One year.

That's all someone gets for tearing apart a family. That's all someone gets for making me have to try and comfort my elderly parents when they begin sobbing every holiday. Their hearts are broken, and I'm constantly reminded that there is nothing I can do.

I'm not too far from you. This happened in Saratoga county.

Please don't ever apologize for trying to help your family as much as you can. I certainly understand.