Posted on 05/26/2005 9:09:09 AM PDT by m1-lightning
Flowers and a melancholy note from grieving family members wilted in the rain on a telephone poll at the corner of Nesper Street and Ryan Avenue in Mayfair yesterday, just a few yards from where a young mother was fatally injured last month.
Sarah McGinley, 18, was pinned by an out-of-control car on her fiance's front lawn on April 17, just seconds after she tossed her 1-year-old daughter to safety. She died from her injuries a few hours later.
Yesterday morning, the District Attorney's Office announced it was filing charges against the driver, Megan Miller, 15, and her father, Richard Miller, 46.
With her father alongside her, Megan Miller was practicing driving in the parking lot of Abraham Lincoln High School when the car crashed through a fence, sped across an intersection and soared up the lawn, hitting McGinley. Miller did not have a learner's permit or a driver's license.
The teen is charged with being involved in an accident involving death or personal injury while not being properly licensed, and will be tried in juvenile court.
Her father is being charged with involuntary manslaughter and homicide by vehicle. He could face up to 12 years in prison, said D.A. spokeswoman Cathie Aboo-kire.
Both father and daughter surrendered to the police accident-investigation division yesterday afternoon, said the family's attorney, Fortunato Perri Jr.
"It is an impossibly difficult time for them," Perri said. "They have nothing but grief for McGinley's family."
The Millers are expected to have separate preliminary hearings within the next week, Perri said.
In both cases, "I think the judge will evaluate the situation and see it's nothing more than an accident. She lost control of the vehicle and was unable to stop what happened. It's a shame," he said.
Local criminal-defense attorney A. Charles Peruto said he believes that juvenile court will be kind to Megan Miller. "The most likely outcome is that they will defer adjudication. They'll leave her in limbo until she's 18 and then wipe her record clean," Peruto said.
The reason, he said, is that as a "young, nonindependent person," she was just following her father's instructions to practice driving.
District Attorney Lynne Abraham viewed the Millers' accident different from Peruto. She cited Pennsylvania law stating that drivers must obtain learner's permits before they can possess a driver's license. "Then and only then may you get behind the wheel of a lethal vehicle and drive the car," she said.
Abraham also faulted Richard Miller for allowing his daughter to drive his 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis, even though they were in a deserted parking lot. If Miller had denied his daughter a driving lesson, "that would have prevented a young mother from dying, and a child from being orphaned for her entire life."
McGinley's daughter, Victoria Wagner, is being cared for by her fiance and his parents.
"idiocy... sometimes and accident is just an accident.
cite him for allowing her to drive, but geez...they didnt mean to kill anyone"
Would you say the same if the driver had a .08 BAC?
um.. well no
The charge is "involuntary manslaughter," which, by definition, means it was not intentional.
No, of course the permit might not have changed anything. But it did open the Dad up to charges.
I think the salient point here is that Dad didn't have control of the car at all times. Better to drop the transmission by throwing it into neutral than to hit someone.
yes, next time I think I'm having a bad day. I should just remember this article.
They have strange laws in Pa! Here in Oklahoma, 14-year-olds
can get a license, not a permit, but a license to drive on public roads as long as they're running errands for the family farm. Most get around the law buy going into town and buying a bag of feed or seed, keeping the receipt handy, and then going wherever it is they might care to go.
Kids of any age can operate any vehicle on private property as long as they are big enough to operate them safely.
but they broke the law... if they had followed the law, this would not have happened...
yeah--what was he teaching her that she actually went through a fence?
How so? Lectures, rules, and videos are not the same as the actual experience. Most of the training in driver's education is rules of the road and this incident was in a parking lot. Very little is actually about handling the car. That's why they have learner's permits, so they can get the experience of driving before they take the test and go out on the road by themselves. Had the father let her drive by herself, then I could see your contrast.
I venture that OK is less dense than PA. And I mean that by population, not mentality! This case illustrates the population density of NE Philadelphia. Car didn't have to go far off the school parking lot to be in a front yard. Add to that our traffic.
Maybe your laws stem from when a child was a necessary hand on the farm, too.
what do you mean? don't parking lots have speed limits? i thought they did...
Please. At least try to keep some perspective on this issue. It was a damned accident. Sounds like a dumb one.
Everybody had to frikkin sue somebody.
Some years back, my 84 year old grandfather was trying to park the car while my dad walked grandad's wife to the door. My grandfather, who had diabetes and probably neuropathy in his feet, hit the gas instead of the brake.
The car shot forward, and when he tried to brake harder, he just pushed harder on the accelerator.
The car shot up the lawn and crushed my grandfathers wife against the house. She ended up losing her leg, and spending almost 6 months in a hospital and rehab. He was crushed. He didn't mean to do it. HER FRIKKIN LAWYER SUGGESTED SHE SUE HER HUSBAND!!!!!!!!
I know my grandfather carried that with him to the end of his days, as will this young girl.
Please. Make a point, but don't call it murder. It is difficult to take your point seriously.
Why not?
You should check state law on that. While few if any states have restrictions on driving without a license on truly private property (i.e. kids driving on their family's farm), most DO apply licensing and various other traffic/vehicle requirements to driving on public property (such as the public high school parking lot that these two started out in), and to quasi-public property, such as parking lots owned by malls and multi-store shopping centers, where the general public is invited to drive.
And it's not irrelevant that this accident occurred when the driver crossed a PUBLIC road intersection, before crashing into adjacent private residential property.
It doesn't say she aimed. Aiming would be murder. Murder requires a motive. The only motive here was leanring how to drive. Inexperienced drivers are likely to panic at the slightest mistake often making the mistake worse and causing an sccident. She may have even closed her eyes out of fear. That makes it an accident.
Just those posted by the property owners. They can, however, call in the police if they feel you are driving dangerously, and you can be charged with any of a number of "menace" type offences.
So didn't Newsweak create a situation where many were killed? Why aren't they being charged??
True. And that is where the parent becomes culpable.
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