The Wheels of Justice Turn Slowly - 4 Years & Counting

[canyonwalker]

Over 4 years ago Hawk and I were involved in a car accident in Seattle. We were passengers in one of several vehicles that were struck by a person driving unsafely. Here's a picture of the vehicle we emerged from:



We were both in the back seat. Hawk was on the near side. You can see that the airbags deployed on that side of the car. Those kept her and the driver from smashing their heads through the glass.

The crash occurred on October 7, 2018. Police decided to charge the driver of one of the other cars with crimes including vehicular assault. Hawk and I would be summoned to appear as witnesses in the trial.

The wheel of justice turn slowly, though. The trial wouldn't be for months after the events in question. Then the Coronavirus pandemic came and scrambled everything. The jurisdiction of Kings County, Washington did not allow remote trials, so cases were delayed even more.

A little over a year ago, in October 2021, the trial got back on the court's docket. I sat for an interview (remotely) with defense counsel. It seemed like the trial would go forward, even if 3 years later. But then another form of delay occurred: the defendant failed to appear. The police wouldn't find him for at least 9 more months.

Police captured the fugitive a few months ago. He remains in custody awaiting trial. Apparently he has a long "rap sheet" of prior criminal convictions; these plus his proven flight risk undoubtedly helped a judge decide to confine him.

As for the trial? Well, it's still bumping with delay after delay. It was scheduled in October. Then early November. Then late November. Then late December. Our last notice from the county attorney's office, late last week, says the schedule is now late January.

The wheels of justice do turn slowly.

4 years, 2 months, and still counting.

Comments

[khedron]

Yikes! My goodness, glad everyone was OK.

[canyonwalker]

Well, not everyone was okay. While the two of us were fine except for minor scrapes and bruises that healed on their own in a few days, others were hurt worse. The driver of our car said his left arm hurt and he worried it might be broken. It hit against that mangled door you can see in the picture. It didn't look obviously broken to me, but I urged EMTs who arrived at the scene to check him out since he seemed reluctant to ask for help himself. The passenger in the car of the driver who was arrested was not wearing a seatbelt, I heard. She looked pretty banged up at the scene. I read in a news report that she was taken to a hospital for head trauma. I don't know the extent of her injuries.

All in all though, the injuries were mild considering the force and speed of the collision. It's a testament to the value of modern safety devices and designs. Even the one person who was foolishly (and illegally) not wearing a seatbelt benefited from an airbag that probably stopped her from being thrown through the windshield and killed.

[khedron]

Not wearing a seatbelt! Extra yikes.

When I first moved here (Columbus, OH), I was working with a guy & his wife who were both, I don't know, 10 years older than me, and they refused to wear seat belts. I just couldn't wrap my mind around it, it's so second nature that I feel uncomfortable when not wearing one.

[canyonwalker]

I'm familiar with many of the excuses not to wear seatbelts— e.g., "I'll brace against the dashboard so I don't go flying through the windshield"— because I grew up in a family that never wore seatbelts. That was back before seatbelts became mandatory. I switched to using them 100% myself around age 15 when my driver ed class in high school presented statistics about injuries with and without seatbelts. I put a seatbelt on the next day and never stopped. I recall my dad changed habits pretty swiftly, too, when I shared the info with him. My mom, though, was a holdout for many years. By then she was already starting to fall down the rabbit hole of politically motivated fantasy. Seatbelts were one of the ways "they" wanted to "control" you.

[sorcyress]

Yipes! I've been in a car that got t-boned and had the airbags go off in my face. It really is amazing how _little_ bruising resulted from that (although our car was not nearly as badly destroyed). I'm glad y'all made it through okay, and sorry that it is taking so long to figure out the rest.

~Sor

[canyonwalker]

It's only a minor bother to us that this court case is taking so long. We walked away from the accident, both literally and figuratively. ...Literally, in that neither of us had worse than minor scrapes and bruises, and we did walk ~6 blocks to our hotel immediately afterward. And figuratively, in that the vehicle wasn't ours— so we weren't inconvenienced by being car-less for weeks or dealing with insurance companies and repair shops.

Our only stake in the ongoing saga is to help see that justice is done. That means appearing at the trial as witnesses and testifying accurately to what we saw. We can both take time off from work, and the court system will pay for our travel. The bother is that the schedule keeps getting delayed, so whenever our testimony ultimately is needed we'll have to make last-minute arrangements for time away from work.