back to article MySpace confession sinks car-death conviction appeal

A California appeals court has upheld a California woman's conviction for vehicular manslaughter by citing her MySpace page, in which she confessed to a penchant for drag racing. Lorin Maureen Franco was found guilty of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence after prosecutors accused her of reaching speeds of 100 MPH as …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've quoted it before...

    and I'll quote it again...

    "Videotaping this crime spree is the best idea we ever had!"

    - Jimbo Jones, "This Little Wiggy" [5F13]

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Removed?

    Sounds like tampering with evidence, to me...

  3. Gil Grissum
    Flame

    If you don't want it to be seen, heard or known, don't post it....

    I don't post anything on publicly available social networking sites or blogs, that I would not want to be seen. That sort of thing is for a private diary that isn't made available for any public consumption. Keep your private thoughts to yourself unless you are so attention starved as to do what this lass did. ..

  4. Winkypop Silver badge
    Happy

    Removed?

    Sounds like shutting the stable (garage) door after the horse (mustang) has bolted...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wonder, was he was listening to

    The Beatles as he flipped his way to oblivion? C'mon, these are the important details!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Be an idiot, go to jail

    If you do something with questionable ethics or morality, do not post about it online, no matter how anonymous you think you are (or aren't, in this case). You can never take it back, it /will/ be found by the cops/lawyers/employers/spouses, and it /will/ bite you on the ass harder than a pack of rabid chihuahuas.

  7. Jay Castle
    FAIL

    Not sure of the US law....

    ......but where I'm from, if you're behind someone who brakes hard and you crash, it's your fault. Period.

    Not matter what the driver in front was doing, you should have been aware that you needed to leave more braking space.

    I'm not saying this woman was a genius but nobody made this other idiot chase\race her. It was his choice. Just cos he's dead, doesn't make him less of an idiot.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Hold on...

    If the driver was behind her and lost control when the leading driver braked then it's the driver of the car behind at fault.

    If you do not leave a safe distance, no matter how fast you are travelling, then it's you own fault END OF. The person behind could of, at any time, slowed down, but no, they decided to continue to race leaving an unsafe distance.

    And if the Mustangs are so shite that hitting the brakes at 100 sends the car out of control, well then the makers should be sued, but somehow I think it was a crap driver who hit the brakes and swerved, and lets face it, American cars are not known for their handling.

    Seriously, the US has some f**ked up laws.

  9. Mr Brush
    FAIL

    Keep digging that hole.

    Called her boyfriend? Let's add use of a mobile phone while driving to the rap sheet.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Vomit

    Thats what I wan't to do after seeing that page.

    Maybe in prison she can take a web designers course and have a page that looks good :)

  11. Aldous
    FAIL

    @Gil Grissum

    but then how will anyone know what a rebel/individual/gangster/artist/poet/etc you are. most of this idiocy on social networking sites is just to get attention be it this women or "gangsta" 12 year olds posing with knifes

  12. Pantelis
    WTF?

    Ridiculous

    This is not making much sense to me. I was under the impression that in most countries in the world, if someone driving behind you and has an accident it is their fault. If you slam on the brakes and they hit you it is their fault. If you slam on the breaks and they loose control of their vehicle, again it is their fault; the reasoning behind this is that it is the responsibility of the driver behind you to make sure that they leave enough room between their car and your car to be able to react in case of an emergency.

  13. Darren Sandford
    Stop

    Warning!

    If you decide to check out that myspace link, remember the golden rule of myspace: your eyeballs WILL bleed if you visit.

  14. Paul Smith
    WTF?

    Thats odd...

    When I grew up, I was taught to believe that one of the things that made America great was that everyone there was innocent until proven guilty. No I know I was right to be sceptical. In this case, how would it matter if she jumped up and down shouting "race me, race me" in front of a live TV crew with an audience of millions 5 minutes before getting in her car? The 'victim' drove badly, fucked up, and died. How is she culpable?

  15. Just Thinking
    WTF?

    Don't get it

    Two people voluntarily enter into an illegal race. One of them loses control of his car and dies. That is the other persons fault?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    That's why it's manslaughter

    And not a murder conviction. Indeed, if they had not been racing he would have been entirely at fault for following too closely.

    For some reason we appear to have laws that say "if you're doing something illegal with someone else and they die, you have some responsibility."

    If they had been at a race track, it would be a completely different story. That's my take on it. IANAL.

    And the phone call to the boyfriend? Maybe the whole thing happened before California's No Talking On Phone While Driving law was passed, or maybe she had a hands free headset.

    Pedantic Grammar Nazi is as close as I could get to a Pedantic Lawyer.

  17. unitron

    It probably wasn't the brakes but the racing...

    If she had been doing at or under the speed limit and hit her brakes, any resulting untoward circumstances would have been blamed on him committing the offense of following too closely.

    I suspect what's going on here is a case of "more than one person participates in a crime that results in a death, everybody's guilty of that death", an idea which has made its way into law only in the last few decades if memory serves.

    That the death was of one of those committing the crime doesn't get any other participants off of the hook.

    Even if the race hadn't been pre-arranged, they consider agreeing to it by participating in it sort of an "instant conspiracy" to jointly commit a crime.

    The thing that bothers me here is that it's not impossible that what she said online was more brag than fact, and that by chance the next day some guy who sees her on the road decides to mess with her, and her attempts at evasion had the reported result. If she and the deceased were previously unknown to each other, then you can't know for sure that she agreed to race (as opposed to trying to run away from him) unless you've got video of them shouting or nodding to each other and then increasing speed.

    And finally a nitpick:

    "When she applied her brakes, opponent Henry Chavez, who was directly behind her, lost control of his vehicle."

    Her depressing of her brake pedal did not magically wrest control of his vehicle from him. He didn't lose control until he responded (apparently in a way that indicates he had no business racing anything anywhere) to her application of brakes.

  18. Hollerith 1

    Phoned her boyfriend?

    She's a speed freak who will jump into an impromptu race, but is so deficient in moral courge that she doesn't know the right thing to do when she sees an accident -- one she helped to cause. I am glad she is off the road, as I want adults there who to know what to do, and not someone who has to phone a boyfriend/huaband/wife/partner for guidance -- on a freeway, while someone might be dying.

  19. Hugh_Pym
    FAIL

    American muscle!

    Doing 'up to 100mph' braked hard and lost control. I'll not be buying a Mustang then.

  20. Marvin the Martian
    FAIL

    And I thought lawyers were generally dim.

    But then I read these "you're behind, so you're responsible" comments. Sheesh.

    It's not like any rule applies as long as it's seemingly relevant after removing sufficiently many caveats

  21. YumDogfood

    Murder Confession On Tom Leykis Show

    Then there is this utter classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln4oM1xrwnw

    Doh!

  22. Sheinen
    Thumb Up

    It was her fault!

    They've got her on incitement. She stated on the site that she has a habit of racing strangers so there is reason to believe that she instigated the race.

    They couldn't prove that, but by participating in it she agreed to do act illegally and dangerously. Had she not tried to beat him to the line he would be alive. It wasn't her intention to cause his death but her actions were directly responsible for it, regardless of what caused him to lose control of the vehicle.

    Thats Manslaughter. In fact it's pretty basic and obvious manslaughter, I'm not really sure why people are struggling with it?

  23. peyton?

    also, don't forget

    She fled the scene... no matter who is at fault, that's a big no-no for an injury accident.

  24. Blake St. Claire
    Headmaster

    @Just Thinking, Paul Smith, Jay Castle, et al

    Suppose you and your best friend decide to rob a bank.Let's presume it's in the U.S. where not only the police, the but bank security guard, and even random bank customers are carrying heat.

    The bank's rentacop shoots your buddy and he bleeds to death waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

    I expect YOU are going to be charged with manslaughter on top of everything else. Manslaughter is a felony criminal charge that will be brought by the local government. On top of that, your friends wife might file a Wrong Death lawsuit -- a civil case -- against you. And no, that's not Double Jeopardy. You can go to trial for both, and found guilty of both.

    What did a judge tell me once? Ignorance of the law is not an excuse (for breaking the law.)

    Hmm. Looks like I accidentally clicked the anonymous button last time. Anyway, Pedantic Grammar Nazi is as close as I can get to Pedantic Lawyer. And no, IA(Still)NAL.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Not 'careened'...

    ... 'careered' is what you mean.

  26. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Not 'careened'...

    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/careen

  27. Pirate Dave Silver badge
    Pirate

    Myspace

    So now MySpace accepted as evidence in a manslaughter case, but polygraphs are still iffy? Man, we are so fucked here in the USA.

  28. kain preacher

    @ blake St. Claire

    Actually under you example the charge would be 1st degree murder in the state of California. The difference is bank robbery is a felony , street racing the first time is not .

  29. Jemma
    FAIL

    Umm.... on what charge?

    I have driven in the US - both times the vehicles I had the pleasure of would have gotten as close to a sucessful MOT as paris hilton gets to talent and personality...

    One was a automatic with a random box of neutrals - the other a plymouth voyager that wouldnt stay in a straight line if you paid it, prayed to it or did anything else - I had RSI from that thing...

    Im not at all surprised that chavez or whatever his name was smeared himself all over the outfield but it amazes me that they've charged this woman at all...

    1. he DID NOT hit her car and go out of control - he managed that all by himself

    2. no contact means no accident - in as much as this should have been recorded as a single car incident

    3. tailgating at 100mph in ANYTHING - specially a yank tank with 600hp and drum brakes is darwin awards behaviour

    4. since there was NO collision - she doesnt have to stop since she is not party to the accident

    5. Even if you could count this as an accident - disregarding all the above - if you hit someone else from behind - even to the point of the impact being further down their vehicle than it is on yours - YOU ARE LIABLE (unless of course you are smeared over three counties and your relations are scraping you up with shovels for a roadkill wake)

    Methinks this is a case of nothing more or less than police retardedness - an all too common complaint - specially when you have spent the last 20 years of your life scratching your testicles in a Crown Victoria...

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    someone behind me crashes and I stop why?

    If someone behind me crashes (and it's not in any way my fault by say, throwing a brick out my window at them or shooting at them) I wouldn't stop. Not sure how that is my responsibility.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    In the UK

    Lots of people claiming that if someone crashes when behind you it is there fault. This is not the case in the UK. In this particular case, the fact that they were racing makes both individuals immediately liable for dangerous driving. Racing on the public roads is actually explicitly specified in the law as being something which, without exception, is classed as dangerous driving. Furthermore, the law for Causing Death by Dangerous Driving (which carries penalties of up to 14 years in the slammer) does not place requirements on how the death was caused. In this case, the incident would be the race, the fact that both drivers were racing would class as dangerous driving, and the fact that one driver was killed would immediately make the other driver guilty of causing death through dangerous driving. The prosecution would only have to prove that the drivers were racing for that conviction to be a given.

    Of course, the US is different, and IANAL.

  32. James Butler
    Boffin

    @Jay Castle et al.

    As some have implied, US law is quite simple, and really not hard to understand in this case:

    If, in the course of committing a crime, someone is killed, then all participants in the crime can be charged with that killing.

    If the crime-in-progress is not a felony, the charge is manslaughter.

    If the crime-in-progress is a felony, the charge is murder.

    Street racing is a crime ... a misdemeanor, usually, but that is determined by the state in which the crime occurs, often with "enhancements" added by the local community ... so any death of any kind related to that crime will result in a manslaughter charge.

    If the other driver had not killed himself, but rather an innocent bystander had died, then both he and the woman he was racing would have been charged with that same crime.

    IANAL, but this is pretty standard stuff, in the USA.

  33. Pirate Dave Silver badge
    Pirate

    OK, here's a case

    The Mrs. has a friend who was in a very minor fender-bender earlier this year - she rear-ended a stopped car while going 10-15 MPH. The driver of the other car was an elderly woman. The older woman was not injured in any way during the accident but went to the hospital anyway to be checked. While at the hospital, she had a bit of a stroke (or maybe it was a heart-attack) and bit her tongue. The bite wound in her tongue got infected. A week later she died from the infection in her tongue. Mrs. Pirate Dave's friend was charged with vehicular manslaughter. Said the cop "The lady died, so somebody has to be charged with her death." Bizarre, but that's the way it seems to work...

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