Posted on 07/08/2005 6:14:56 AM PDT by Pharmboy
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A woman who was forbidden from driving after pleading guilty in a fatal crash was sentenced to more than seven years in prison for violating probation when she took her children to school. To avoid jail time, Sonia Ortiz, 25, had accepted a plea deal in August for her involvement in a 2003 crash that killed West Palm Beach Police Officer Thomas Morash.
Ortiz, who did not have a license, pulled out in front of Morash, who was on a motorcycle, according to a Florida Highway Patrol report. She was charged with driving without a valid driver's license causing death.
She was arrested again April 15 after a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy saw her driving alone after dropping off her children at their elementary school.
Ortiz said in court Thursday that she had no other way of getting the four children to school.
Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga said she would continue to flout the law and drive.
"It's now my duty to protect society," Labarga said.
Amazing... she had not served a day of jail time at all. At least that will change now.
If she's been a pedophile, she'd be free today.
Good for the judge. "No other way to get the children to school," indeed! Public schools have bus service. If they're too near the school to be on the bus route, she should have walked them there. If they were too late for the bus, whose fault is it? (Where's the other parent, btw?)
Keep this killer off the roads.
I agree.
If she can afford a car and gas for it - she can afford to pay someone to take the kids to school.
Jorge Labarga. I think we liked this judge before -- some decisions he made in the 2000 election in Florida, IIRC.
Legal or illegal?
So9
There's nothing I hate more than parents who use their children as pawns to get what they want.
"A rational judge in flori-duh?"
zzzzzzzz yawn zzzzzzzz
Thank you Judge Labarga
Disclaimer: All comments are based on ONLY the information given.
First, it was an accident that the officer was killed, not a criminal act. The article states that she pulled out in front of the motorcycle cop.
Second, banning her from driving at all would, IMHO, violate her right to travel freely. It puts an undue burden on her to get her children to school and the doctor and to get groceries.
Third, the sentence was excessively harsh because it wasn't just your average Joe who was killed. Apparently some animals are more equal than others. It is sad, but the reality is that if you ride a motorcycle, you are much more likely to have a car pull out in front of you. It happens all the time. A more appropriate sentence would have been to require her to get a license and insurance and attend a driver's education course.
how does one get a car when they don't have a license? what about insurance?
See #7. I don't have time to research it now, but am pretty sure Labarga was a favorite judge of FReepers during the 2000 election.
See my comments in #13.
I disagree. Free speech, etc. Not that it makes any difference what either of us thinks, because it's a done deal in a state where I, at least, don't live.
I'm not sure there's any "right to travel freely."
But even if there were, I think that "right" would not mean that someone has a "right" to drive a car. It would mean that a gov't has not right to prevent you from, say, going from East Germany to West Germany before the wall fell.
And this woman did not have a driver's license. Should unlicensed people have a "right to travel [i.e., drive a car] freely" ? Is the state's requirement that one have a driver's license somehow an infringement of one's rights? I don't think so.
(Where's the other parent, btw?)
AND she is only 25 and has 4 school-aged kids? GEEZ!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.