Motorist who killed Jerome Featherman fined $254.00
From the Green Valley News
Driver in fatal crash is fined
Published: Saturday, September 26, 2009 12:14 PM MSTGreen Valley News
The driver of a car that struck and killed a Green Valley cyclist Sept. 3 pleaded responsible to two traffic violations and paid $254 in fines.
David Armstrong, 76, of Green Valley, pleaded responsible to “overtaking bicycles — fatal,” and “driving in the bike lane” and was fined $140.50 and $113.50 respectively.
Jerome Featherman, 84, was killed when he was hit in Green Valley.
There you have it, folks.
–Erik Ryberg
September 28th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
What would have happened if Featherman were driving a car and killed by being rear-ended by David Armstrong? Would there be a different crime to charge him with? Or do we rely on the civil courts and insurance companies to address issues like this?
September 28th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
This is absurd, what is the definition of vehicular manslaughter? I can’t believe there is no consequence for killing another person with your vehicle
September 28th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Didn’t even loose a DL? Pathetic
September 28th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
According to Wikipedia, AZ is one of three states without a vehicular homicide law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_manslaughter. If I understand the article correctly, they would have to be charged with regular homicide.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
We don’t have a vehicular homicide statute, but we do have a negligent homicide statute, which covers situations like this one. It’s just that it isn’t employed by prosecutors except in really egregious situations.
September 28th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
So, that is what a human being is worth? How about the prosecuting attorney in this case? Is he or she worth $254? And yes I’m pi$$ed off about this.
September 28th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
We keep seeing stories about this kind of thing and we are all outraged. How could we not be? But, what do we do after the outrage? Do we wait for the next story and become outraged again. That is a vicious cycle that doesn’t help our cause.
I really think cyclist in Arizona need to form some sort of organization to stand up for our rights and lobby our representatives to change the laws. Is there something like that already?
September 28th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
One must declare sovereignty, personally provide protection for privilege and property (if one thinks of themselves as entitled to own), and form a private court of common-law that punishes people for causing criminal damage (unjust harm to another person, not property damage); either do this, or like Michael McKisson points out, one can reasonably expect to be outraged again.
It seems strange to me that so many people are willing to pledge allegiance to a state that continues to deliver empty promises (and has no shortage of empty promises for the suckers of tomorrow).
Always the same dog and pony show, and the same stupid audience.
September 28th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Just saw the report on KOLD. Mindy Blake tried hard not to show her outrage, making note of the victim’s helmet AND reflective vest. Featherman’s not the tipping point, but we’re getting there.
Oh, who am I kidding? It’s homicide, punishable by $256.
September 28th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
That’s just a little bit-o-change over what they charge bicyclists who fail to come to a complete stop at a stopsign. Not that I think cyclists should get to blow off stop signs, but it still seems a little out of proportion.
September 28th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
If you hit a metal guard rail, the city will charge something like $1,100 to replace it. Something is out of whack here.
September 29th, 2009 at 12:11 am
I don’t like it that the state profits
from this guy’s death.
September 29th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Wow. Wow! Ridiculous. So absurd that it reads like satire. It’s a human life for crying out loud!!!!
Here we go- last month a guy in Anchorage got 8 years in prison for killing a dog:
http://www.newsminer.com/news/2009/aug/10/anchorage-man-gets-8-years-killing-dog/
Tony, how does one go about the process of forming “a private court of common-law that punishes people for causing criminal damage?” It seems easier imagined than done. The state allows us to be pissed off and express our outrage and disapproval, but the second anybody tried to go outside the law like that they’d end up “mysteriously” disappearing one day.
September 29th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Wow.
September 29th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
[...] of road problems, and forwards them to the appropriate authorities. Kill a cyclist in Arizona, get fined $254. Austin offers a preview of what to expect from David Byrne on Friday. Does it surprise anyone to [...]
September 29th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Hi Lauren
Well, to answer your question, it is simple. The first example that comes to mind involves the victim(s) (one that has suffered unjust harm) (or family of the victim(s) in case the victim(s) is/are dead), and the criminal(s) (cause of unjust harm). In the court of common-law, the victim(s) of a crime may (lawfully) reciprocate unto the criminal(s) all harm they were caused unjustly and no person may (lawfully) interfere. The case may be where one or both of the parties involved is incapable or unwilling to acknowledge equality, and so an impartial third party is involved (like state sponsored) courts in order to recommend punishment of equivalent severity. The victim(s) of a crime may reciprocate the harm done unto them anytime, anywhere, by any means, until they are satisfied that all the harm they suffered unjustly has been delivered back unto the criminal(s). Victim(s) still have the right (by law) to deliver justice after the state sponsored court has ruled, because the ruling of the court is only legally binding, and the word of the victim(s) is law.
September 29th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
i’ll say more if needed
September 29th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Tony, that is the system described in Leviticus. We don’t do it that way any more.
Instead, in this country we have civil lawsuits which are governed by the rules of civil procedure, case law, and statute, and presided over by a judge, with a jury picked via a random process.
When you say that “victims still have the right (by law) to deliver justice after the state sponsored court has ruled,” you are using a different definition of law than most people. You are referring to “natural law,” and whether there is indeed a natural law that lets you extract the retribution of your choice upon a defendant is a matter of opinion.
EBR
September 29th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Hi Tony!:)
…I don’t know. The court of common law sounds like a good excuse for people to go around killing each other. As Erik said, it pretty much sounds like Leviticus “eye for an eye” type situation.
I guess I simply just don’t have enough faith in humanity to think that people would be able to handle it reasonably…
September 29th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
How sad. i just got a parking ticket for $175 because my car was parked facing the wrong way at the meter. It is disheartening to know that for killing a human being using the same vehicle, I would have been fined only about $80 more.
The message is very clear….when it comes to killing bicyclists around here, life is cheap.
My condolences to Mr. Featherman’s brother, who lost his companion and best friend.
September 30th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Erik, first of all I have not read the bible, but I’m guessing Leviticus is a story that made some impression on you; I’m describing something people can do now, not something that I read in a novel.
I realize that statutory citizens have the option of civil court.
Law is not a matter of opinion. Justice is not a matter of opinion. Law and justice are expressions; one can argue the definitions all day if so inclined (and you might since you are a lawyer) but one cannot deny the meaning. I guess some lawyers take it for granted that they are somehow leaders in the conventions of law.
Lauren, don’t worry about the absurd stuff people will do. Some people might kill others in order to vent their rage, but this killing is unjust, and somebody will put it to an end. It is like war; when people are sold a reason to be angry, and then are sold an opportunity to vent that anger with legal impunity (just sign on the dotted line and you will begin your training on this date…), well war happens. People don’t have justice on their side when they murder (hence the meaning of the word murder), though they might have reason enough to try and act as if there is no law, they fail to prove that the law may be broken.
If you have faith in yourself, and say for sure that you can uphold law and justice, then you are in the perfect place to extend your faith to the rest of humanity. (And anyway, how reasonable are people being today?)
September 30th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Tony, forget the Bible (“eye for an eye”). What you might want to read is Aeschylus’s Oresteia. It is a trilogy of plays, the Agamemnon, the Libation Bearers, and the Eumenides. It deals with all these questions. I don’t think anyone has more subtly inquired into the meaning of “justice” — and the question of whether it is “opinion” or not — than the Greeks.
For example: Helen was a captive wife of a brute, Menelaus. She fell in love with Paris, who when a guest at Menelaus’s home whisked her away to Troy to live happily ever after (Justly? Injustly?) Menelaus then urged his powerful brother Agamemnon to help him get her back. Agamemnon’s armies stalled in the sea and began to die; the only solution was for Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter. This allowed him to proceed to Troy and after many years and thousands dead, capture Troy — but it enraged his wife Clytemnestra, who remarried and then killed him when he returned to avenge the death of her daughter. Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, then avenged his death by killing Clytemnestra. But the Furies, whose duty is to avenge matricide, pursued him relentlessly.
Eventually the gods had to step in and stop the cycle of death and killing, and in the process invented courts, juries, and positive law.
The process you describe and advocate is the source and foundation of gang warfare, and the Greeks saw and wrote very eloquently and subtly about the dangers of this over two millenia ago.
EBR
October 1st, 2009 at 2:44 am
I’ll gladly follow suite with a literary recommendation for you
Anything by Paul Bowles or William Kotzwinkle; only for fun. I see it unfair on my part to recommend something that would serve to instruct or inform you as to the fashion in which the expression of law might be expected to manifest in your mind’s eye; I do not intend or purpose to spoil your education.
I do not have a first hand understanding of gang warfare. I’ll hazard to guess that you subscribe to the notion (influenced as you indicate by the Greeks) that gang warfare is dangerous; to whom and how?
It seems like you are saying that the Greeks were keen to observe and discern; good for them: they kept a record.
Eloquence and subtlety do not change the matter of fact; Fact is unreasonable fiction (and vice-versa). I do not subscribe to the logic that ’something is lawful today because records indicate that it was lawful an a day before today’; I keep to my senses in stead.
If these Greeks you mention meant to write about law, I must assume they were writing about the same law that might be described as the ‘universal’ or ‘force of unison’, or maybe even ‘way to live by’. I’m not sure what ‘natural law’ is; is there an opposite of ‘natural’?
The sayings ‘live and let live’, or ‘forgive and forget’ work to the same effect as ‘eye for an eye’; Do you catch my drift?
October 1st, 2009 at 11:22 am
Positive law is written or expressed law imposed and enforced by a sovereign.
Natural law is the set of ideals like “do unto others . . . .”
They are not opposites; positive law always expresses some sovereign’s notion of what natural law is. But different sovereigns have different ideas about natural law. That’s the trouble with it. Writing it down and making it positive law seems to bring more fairness into the mix, and exposes both the law’s and the sovereign’s biases to daylight and criticism. One reason our courtrooms are open to the public.
I am not sure how you can question whether “warfare” is dangerous. That sounds like wondering if the night is dark. I’ve never been to Somalia and I wasn’t in Bosnia during the 90’s, but I was in El Salvador in the 80’s, and I can tell you that my limited first-hand observations of war are that it is indeed dangerous, and really does result in dead and dismembered people, many or most of them non-combatants.
And I think it is pretty damned easy to be an anarchist in a democratic country that has a functioning government to protect you from other anarchists who may not be so naturally peaceful as you.
October 1st, 2009 at 2:01 pm
ummm…
Something from a court:
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/311340
Do these things really change anything for cyclists?
Or do they just monetize…
October 1st, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Red Star-I thought that article was going to be about Jose Rincon, color me surprised!
October 1st, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Charlotte,
DLS: newspaper editors tend to project.
Whether that is a desireable trait is open to debate, as you suggest…
October 1st, 2009 at 4:47 pm
The word ‘accident’ should not be
allowed in court in cases where the
BAC level passes 0.08 per cent.
And it shouldn’t have taken the
phone call for the judge to assess
an aggravated sentence.
Oooo…if I were a sovereign.
October 1st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
The term “accident” should never be used to refer to *any* vehicle collision. It’s code for excusing negligent behavior.
http://azbikelaw.org/blog/was-that-an-accident-or-a-crash/
October 1st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
[...] The case was settled for only $254 in fines, covering two citations, according to the GV News “David Armstrong, 76, of Green Valley, pleaded responsible to ‘overtaking bicycles – fatal,’ and ‘driving in the bike lane’ and was fined $140.50 and $113.50 respectively”. No word as to why the fine for violating §28-735 , which carries a fine of “up to” $1,000, was settled for far less — not that it really makes much difference, but after all what’s the point of having enhanced penalties for more serious outcomes if the judge/magistrate doesn’t apply it? [...]
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:36 pm
You are mistaken if you mean to say that ‘positive law’ is any different form ‘natural law’; It is like you are describing t-shirts as being fundamentally different because you perceive them as being different colors, or because you have a preference of material. Law is Law, it is an assumed form, an axiom so to speak; You are using ‘positive’ and ‘natural’ as relative terms to describe sections of the full scope of an inferred function of law.
I asked if there is an opposite to ‘natural’, not if ‘positive law’ is the opposite of ‘natural law’.
The sovereign is not an individual; sovereign is not a name for an entity of special quality. All life is sovereign, if you say it is any other way you are selling a scam.
You mentioned ‘gang warfare’, and I asked to whom and how ‘gang warfare’ is dangerous. War (by the way) is designed to result in death, and is not any more or less dangerous for resulting in the death of non-combatants.
Explain the tangent about anarchism.
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:26 pm
There are three really good ways to ensure that you will always win any argument.
1. Challenge every assumption made by your interlocutor. (“Why do you say gang warfare is dangerous? Please explain.”)
2. Immediately abandon or change all your positions as soon as they are shown to have been untenable, without acknowledging you have done so. (Glenn Beck: “Obama hates white people.” Then five seconds later: “I never said that Obama hates white people.”
3. Make up your own definitions of words or refuse to recognize the common ones. (“You are mistaken to say that positive law is any different from natural law.” “A sovereign is not an individual.”)
A fourth way is to just be generally insane. Six plus five is nine, do you catch my drift?
Anyway just so my basic point here does not get lost: if you get injured on your bike and you set up your own court, as Tony urges you to do, and then you try to exact whatever penalty that “court” has “ordered” from the victim, you are very likely to find yourself in prison, so I advise against it.
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Could we steer the discussion back to mundanities?
One of the points of having this (relatively) new law, 28-735, was that it provided for “enhanced” penalities — $1,000 in the case of death. Did the magistrate (? or whatever?) even know about this? Or is he/she just being recalcitrant?
$140 sounds like it’s just the standard fine for a traffic infraction… or is the $27 extra (the amount above the fine for driving in a bike path) considered adequate for a fatality?
October 3rd, 2009 at 12:15 pm
To whom and how is not a why, but I guess it’s too confusing.
I am still curious about the tangent to anarchism, but it is not important.
I cannot say that I am any more or less insane
I do my best to be consistent; you are of course welcome to point out my inconsistencies.
It seems to me that people doing what they may rightfully do ought not be afraid of going to prison, but sadly I have witnessed the courts deny people their rights, and fabricate reasons to imprison people unlawfully. It is impossible to know what one should do; I hope sooner than later people aren’t too afraid to stand up for themselves.
October 9th, 2009 at 10:02 am
[...] Green Valley, AZ: Motorist Takes Plea in Cyclist Death, Fined $254 (Tuscon Bike Lawyer) [...]