An Austin, TX grand jury verdict has left troubling questions in its wake. In the case at issue, Kevin Sparkman, the driver of a pickup truck, sped past an unheeded stop sign and T-boned a Chevy Tahoe. The fatal wreck killed the young mother and two of her young children inside the vehicle. Another child received injuries from the wreck and now lives with an aunt.
Sparkman’s lawyer claims that a wasp inside the cab of his truck distracted Kevin Sparkman at the time of the fatal wreck. The Austin, TX grand jury accepted his argument and let Sparkman off without criminal charges. I’m not sure that I would have taken the same position had I been on that Austin, TX grand jury.
If I had a winged pest distracting me inside my vehicle, I would pull over and deal with the problem. I would not keep speeding along as I tracked the pest and disregarded the road and approaching intersections. Perhaps as a Pearland personal injury lawyer I am simply too conscious of the potential for serious and fatal wrecks from distracted driving. To be fair, defense lawyers would probably never allow we Pearland personal injury lawyers to even serve on a grand jury. Voir dire for us would be va t’en.
The Austin news article covering the verdict focuses on the tension that we as a society experience between the need to enforce the law and the need to make allowances for common mistakes. Admittedly I as a Pearland personal injury lawyer err on the side of enforcement.
The Austin news article, almost as an aside, mentions that the aggrieved surviving family members, understandably outraged by the grand jury’s failure to indict on criminal charges, did receive civil compensation settlements in undisclosed amounts.
Our Pearland personal injury lawyers find that this case well illustrates the utility of a civil claim in helping family members to achieve some closure and some measure of justice in a case. In some accident cases, as with this fatal wreck in Austin, you may never see the negligent driver as fully punished as perhaps he should be. But you can ensure that he feels some measure of punishment for his heinous actions by holding him financially accountable through a wrongful death claim in civil court.
If you’ve lost a loved one to a negligent driver’s inattention, and you have questions about how you can hold him or her accountable, contact our Pearland personal injury lawyers for your free consultation. Our goals are to help you hold negligent drivers accountable for their actions and to help you achieve the fullest measure of civil justice obtainable under the circumstances. Call today.