Posted on 07/31/2002 5:47:13 PM PDT by Libloather
Man Tried for Friend's Drunkenness
Tue Jul 30, 1:15 PM ET
By JOHN CURRAN, Associated Press Writer
SALEM, N.J. (AP) - A 40-year-old laborer is on trial in New Jersey in a groundbreaking case experts say could clear the way for the prosecution of anyone who lets a drunken driver get behind the wheel.
Kenneth Powell was asleep at home two years ago when police called and asked him to pick up best friend Michael Pangle, who had been arrested for drunken driving after a drinking session in a strip club.
Powell picked up Pangle and took his friend back to his sport utility vehicle, which was parked beside the road where he'd been arrested.
Pangle, 37, drove off into the night. Less than an hour later, his SUV collided with another car, killing him and 22-year-old Navy Ensign John Elliott, who was headed to his mother's birthday party.
Tests revealed Pangle had a 0.26 blood-alcohol content when he died, more than twice the legal limit.
Prosecutors blamed Powell for letting Pangle get behind the wheel and charged him with both deaths. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter, vehicular homicide and aggravated assault by auto.
"Kenneth Powell made a series of conscious decisions to set that whole thing in motion, even though he knew better," prosecutor Michael Ostrowski told jurors July 17. "Nobody is here saying he intended anyone to get hurt. But he intended to set that reckless conduct in motion, knowing there was a real risk."
Lawyers for Powell, who has yet to talk publicly about the case against him, contend that State Police bear responsibility for giving Pangle his car keys and giving him directions back to the vehicle.
Holding Powell accountable would allow the prosecution of toll takers, gas station attendants and anyone else who encounters a drunken driver and fails to stop him from driving, defense attorney Carl Roeder said.
The case marks the first time a friend with no direct involvement in a drunken driving accident has been charged for not stopping the driver involved, according to defense attorneys and Mothers Against Drunk Driving officials.
Frank K. Russo, a defense lawyer and former Florida prosecutor, says Powell's fate will hinge on whether witnesses show that Pangle was so obviously drunk when Powell met him at the police station that he should have known his friend posed a threat to other drivers.
"As a third party, to what extent are you obligated to take the keys?" Russo said. "You could be setting yourself up for battery or a disorderly conduct charge if you get into a fight and a neighbor or someone else calls to report it."
Gary Trichter, a lawyer who heads the Houston-based National College of DUI Defense Inc., said he knew of no other case in which a third party like Powell — who hadn't served any alcohol to Pangle and didn't own or operate the vehicle — has been charged.
He said it was wrong to hold Powell accountable when State Police had implicitly given their approval by releasing him and giving him his keys back.
"Let's take this to its logical conclusion. The state, by prosecuting this guy, is saying this guy should have fought him, used physical force to stop him," Trichter said.
The case has already changed New Jersey law. The Legislature passed a bill last year giving police the power to impound the vehicles of drunken drivers for up to 12 hours after their arrest. Similar federal legislation is pending.
"The introduction of (that legislation) has given us hope that John did not die in vain, that he will not be forgotten and that in his name, lives will be saved across the nation," said Elliott's father, William Elliott.
Haven't you heard? Pornography was responsible for Ted Bundy's murders. While not everyone who views pornography becomes a serial killer has yet to be explained.
Yet another AM bump - eh?
Open your mind and consider this - if you intentionally set out to get someone drunk, see them sit behind the wheel of a car, give them the keys, watch them start the car and drive away while learning later that the driver killed someone else - are you not somewhat responsible for the death of the dead?
It's interesting to note that jurors are enlisted and paid by the government and the judges turn them into co-conspirators in violating the constitution. Albeit the jurors are unaware that they are being incorporated into the judges' crimes. I think the legal term is misprision felony.
Where has congress been on this issue? Not a word. For it is the laws and congress that creates them that judges have been protecting.
Politicians and bureaucrats have a sop proclaim of compassion, saying: "I'm going to use the government to help the little guy." Most of the time they fabricate a boogieman and claim to protect the little guy from it.
That in a nutshell is what Praetorian-guard judges protect. Separation of powers has long since been an illusion. Hand in hand congress and the department of justice has lead to this...
Congress has created so many laws that virtually every person is assured of breaking more than just traffic laws. Surely with all this supposed lawlessness people and society should have long ago run head long into destruction. But it has not.
Instead, people and society have progressively prospered. Doing so despite politicians creating on average, 3,000 new laws each year which self-serving alphabet-agency bureaucrats implement/utilize to justify their usurped power and unearned paychecks. They both proclaim from on high -- with complicit endorsement from the media and academia -- that all those laws are "must-have" laws to thwart people and society from running headlong into self-destruction.
Again, despite not having this year's 3,000 must-have laws people and society increased prosperity for years and decades prior. How can it be that suddenly the people and the society they form has managed to be so prosperous for so long but suddenly they will run such great risk of destroying their self-created prosperity? Three hundred new laws each year is overkill, but 3,000 is, well, it's insane.
"Congress is rushing to pass a bill outlawing corporate fraud. If they really want to outlaw fraud, maybe they should just pass a bill outlawing Congress."
The government is the all time champion of cooking the books and it has the gall to point fingers at the whole business community because of a few bad apples. The entire business community and employees that support it should stand tall against a government feigning to protect the little guy from organizations that cook their books.
If there was ever a prime example of the fox guarding the hen house it is the government claiming to protect the little guy from organizations that cook their books.
By a 63 percent-33 percent margin, Americans say the president and Congress should focus on prosecuting corporate wrongdoers rather than passing new laws. Severe economic downturn could bring 1930s-style reform
People are becoming acutely aware that their tax dollars are being used to create more and more new laws instead of serving to protect individual rights.
As long as State and Federal governments continue to extort income-tax from the productive working class and creative business community the parasitical-politicians and self-serving bureaucrats will never run out of ways to spend that money to the net harm of the working class, the business community and society in general. If it's not the Democrats it's the Republicans -- usually both.
President Bush can play the unbeatable five-ace hand of replacing the initiation-of-force IRS and graduated income tax with a consumption tax wherein if you don't want to pay the tax don't buy the item. Not only would that boom the economy while fighting off a looming economic double-dip inflation/recession headed for depression it would win President Bush a 2004 reelection.
What are the odds of that happening?
When I was a kid a friend's father, Mr. Brown used to jokingly say to us neighborhood kids, "Which do you want, a fat lip or a busted eyebrow?" That was not lost on me. From Democrats you get one, from Republicans you get the other. Voting for the lesser of evils still begets evil.
The genie is out of the bottle.
Where will it lead?
War of Two Worlds
Value Creators versus Value Destroyers
Politics is not the solution. It's the problem!
The first thing civilization must have is business/science. It's what the family needs so that its members can live creative, productive, happy lives. Business/science can survive, even thrive without government/bureaucracy.
Government/bureaucracy cannot survive without business/science. In general, business/science and family is the host and government/bureaucracy is a parasite.
Aside from that, keep valid government services that protect individual rights and property. Military defense, FBI, CIA, police and courts. With the rest of government striped away those few valid services would be several fold more efficient and effective than they are today.
Underwriters Laboratory is a private sector business that has to compete in a capitalist market. Underwriters laboratory is a good example of success where government fails.
Any government agency that is a value to the people and society -- which there are but a few -- could better serve the people by being in the private sector where competition demands maximum performance.
Wake up! They are the parasites. We are the host. We don't need them. They need us.
Tests revealed Pangle had a 0.26 blood-alcohol content when he died, more than twice the legal limit.
When I was drinking, I could get my BAC from .04 to .26 in about 15 minutes. How do we know Mr. Pangle's BAC didn't go from .08 to .26 from the time he was released until the time of the accident?
If Powell is convicted, his attorney should be disbarred.
Even if he was still over the limit when his buddy got him, his buddy was in no way equipped to determine his BAC. The police on the other hand are eminently qualified to determine it and his buddy would know that. The fact that they gave him his keys and told the buddy where his car was would cause this reasonable person to believe the cops thought he was 'okay now'.
What's going to lose this case for the prosecution is that it took him nearly an hour for the guy to kill himself. What did he do in the meantime? How many more drinks did he have? He could have been legal when his buddy got him and trashed half an hour later.
Quite true...and often the fodder for arguements around here. "If you vote for Howard Phillips it's a vote for Gore..."
It would be refreshing to have a non-evil candidate to vote for now and again.
That's the point. Powell did know because he picked him up for a drunk driving charge.
CharacterCounts: The man is not being prosecuted because he failed to stop him from driving but because he assisted and aided in the drunk driving by taking the drunk back to his car.
ImphClinton: What kind of idiot takes a drunk to his car to drive home or anywhere else. This man deserves to go to prison.
Are citizens compelled by law to protect other citizens? Before you answer, read post #21
Well, as you know, we've all taken an oath to agree with each other on every single detail of every conceivable issue.
Frankly, I think this guy should be prosecuted. He knowingly went out of his way to provide a drunk with a car.
These fine shades of grey are why we have a juries.
The original comment was regarding a veterans right to bear arms. I have no reason to believe the veteran in question is dangerous, just very outspoken.
No they are not.
Still I think this guy should be prosecuted for stupidity above and beyond the call of idiocy.
I think its called "reckless endangerment".
Absolutely.
That's why you should make decisions about things like driving before you get into that condition.
It seems to me that in this situation, the cops are more at fault than the friend. Unless perhaps they explicitly told him to take the drunk home rather than back to his car.
Seeing as how that question was uttered by Cain, when "on trial" for murdering his brother Abel, I don't think the defendant in this case will want to use those exact words. ;-D
You have a point there.
I remember a friend of ours getting too drunk to drive, we took his car keys....... the Ba..... had a spare set, sometimes there is nothing you can do against stupidity.
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