Teen Found Guilty in Texting While Driving Case
A teenager has been found guilty of causing a deadly car crash because he was texting. Eighteen-year-old Aaron Deveau will spend a year in prison in a case that could set the precedent for texting and driving crimes. The defendant took the stand to testify that he was not distracted by his cell phone before the collision that killed a father of three, Donald Bowley Jr. He said that he was “just distracted” because he “had a lot of homework due on Monday.”
The jury had the teen’s phone records showing that he had received two text messages at 2:34p and 2:35p. The crash happened at 2:36p which led the jury to believe that he was in fact distracted by his phone seconds before the accident.
Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl said on Kelly’s Court today that “When you’re looking down at the cell phone and you’re receiving and or sending texts, you’re not looking
by definition. You’re not looking at the road and that’s what the jury found was negligence, negligent manslaughter here. It’s not intentional, he didn’t do it with any kind of malice, but he was negligent in driving while texting.”
Former prosecutor and defense attorney, Jonna Spilbor said, “That’s so close in time that, come on, I don’t believe his testimony either. However, what I don’t like about this verdict … we can’t line prisons with a bunch of teenagers, we have do something different than just lock them up and throw away the key.”
Wiehl interjected, “Wait a second, if this kid had not been texting while driving, good chance that that man -- father of three would still be alive.”
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