I never thought it would happen, but a jury of eight declared Bishop O'Brien guilty.
It seemed like a clear cut case, in my opinion. I'm not sure why his defense attorney thought it was necessary to bring up the fact that the victim was drunk, that he had staggered out into the street, that he had been found in an elderly woman's apartment ten minutes earlier. He wasn't being charged with murder or even manslaughter. He was charged with leaving the scene of a fatal hit and run.
And that's exactly what the bishop did. He left the scene. Regardless of my personal theories on WHY he left the scene, nobody ever disputed the fact that he (a) struck the victim and (b) left the scene. We had to spend taxpayer dollars to figure that out?
I've got to hand it to those eight people though. All polls taken indicated about 60% thought he was guilty and 40% did not. There must have been some compelling evidence presented to the jury in order for all of them to reach a unanimous decision.
Now, it will be interesting to see what sentence is imposed on him.
To be continued...
Posted by geekchik at February 17, 2004 04:08 PM