Mexican Criminal? American Justice?

I just got this email from FAXDC.com, a political action website. I'm assuming it's supposed to make me angry that innocent Americans were killed by a Mexican truck driver.

But this seems such a horrible miscarriage of justice, in only succeeds in making me feel sorry for the hapless, unlucky driver.

Has nobody in this country ever heard of an ACCIDENT? Is EVERYTHING somebody's FAULT...somebody's CRIMINAL FAULT?

Rather than fax my representatives to stop Mexican trucking in the U.S., this moves me to start an Appeal Fund for this unhappy man.

I'm all for Conservative/Patriotic action, but please people, can we get a little perspective here? This is a horrifying story of tragedy and misplaced outrage, of vengeance, and the corruption of the legal system by people who are unwilling to accept the fact that SHIT HAPPENS...

"A trucker who plowed his trailer rig into a traffic jam on Interstate 15 last year killing four people and injuring six was sentenced to four to 24 years in prison. Milson Sabino Oliveira Filho, 52, sobbed and his body shook as he talked of his remorse about the crash and said faulty brakes were to blame for the deaths. "I was about to get off on the Cheyenne exit and at the last minute I decided not to and lost control of my truck," Oliveira, who speaks Spanish, told Senior District Judge Charles Thompson through an interpreter.

Could YOUR Family be the Victim of Unsafe Mexican Trucks?

Oliveira, a Mexican trucker, was driving a trailer full of paper pulp from Utah to Southern California about 9:25 p.m. Nov. 16 when he barreled up behind traffic that had slowed to a crawl in a construction zone on the southbound side of the freeway near Cheyenne Avenue. Oliveira said his speed was 50 mph, but Chief Deputy District Attorney L.J. O'Neale said investigators estimated it was 60 mph. O'Neale said he believed fatigue also played a role in the crash. Oliveira's driving logs were inaccurate, but investigators were able to determine that he had been driving for 7 1/2 more hours than federal regulations allow, O'Neale said. Federal hours-of-service rules allow interstate commerce truckers to drive up to 11 hours in any 14-hour shift before they must take 10 consecutive hours off. Oliveira said his brakes failed him. "I tried to stop the truck by throwing it against the divider," Oliveira said as he wept. "I kept doing that but it wouldn't stop."

Thirteen vehicles were part of the pileup in front of Oliveira's truck. The collision catapulted the car being driven by Robert Allen Newsted Jr., killing the 31-year-old steel company supervisor. His infant son was strapped into a car seat and survived the wreck. But everyone in the first vehicle struck by the 18-wheeler died: Arturo Cortez, 69, his wife Estrellita, 64, and their 7-year-old granddaughter Kayla, who was in the backseat. The truck dragged the Cortezes' car "for more than 100 feet, leaving, I'm sorry to say, body parts in the road," O'Neale said. Virginia resident and U.S. Air Force member Sarah Hamilton used her jacket to cover Kayla's body, the prosecutor said. Other Air Force personnel who, like Hamilton, had been driving away from Nellis Air Force Base at the time of the crash, parked a vehicle on I-15 to block the little girl's body from traffic, O'Neale said. Kayla's father, Arturo Cortez Jr., was in the courtroom for Oliveira's sentencing.

Oliveira pleaded guilty to seven counts of reckless driving in exchange for prosecutors dropping four counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Support HR3074 and Stop the Mexican Trucks!

Already an amendment introduced by three members of the House of Representatives aims to cut off all funding for any sort of cross-border program with Mexican motor carriers. Members of the House have begun consideration of HR3074, the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill for fiscal year 2008. Reps. Peter DeFazio, D-OR, Duncan Hunter, R-CA, Gary Miller, R-CA, and Nancy Boyda, D-KS, introduced an amendment to the legislation calling for a stop of all funding for cross-border trucking programs with Mexico.

TAKE ACTION NOW!"

Don't get me wrong, I want a 30 foot wall on the Mexican border, with gun towers...OK? But there is something very wrong with a country that sentences an unlucky driver to years in prison for causing an accident.

And all the descriptions of infant fatalities, and body parts on the road does not change the fact that it was unforeseeable happenstance. The larger the scope of a tragedy does not increase the unlawfulness of the participants as this article seems to insist.

If I trip over a crack in the sidewalk, fall down, knocking over an old man in a walker, and he skins his knee...is that an accident?

If he hits his head on the pavement and dies...is that manslaughter?

If he's carrying his twin infant grand-daughters and they hit their heads and die too...is it murder?

What if I've been walking for hours? What if my vision is "impaired" by sunglasses? What if I'm wearing high heels? What if I've drunk a beer? What if I'm talking on my cell phone? Or walking with a friend visiting...and don't see the hazard on the sidewalk...is that negligence?

When exactly does tripping on the sidewalk become a CRIME in today's America? If you think this is a joke, you haven't been paying attention. More and more EVERYTHING and ANYTHING can be a crime in America. You don't need to be a criminal to end up in prison, you just need to be unlucky once.

This is an outrageous story alright...but not for the reasons the idiots who sent it to me think. And if Conservatives miss the essential, fundamental badness in this story, what hope is there?

The Gunslinger