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Wellesley broker charged with driving away with trooper attached to car at Logan apologizes
By adamg on Wed, 05/13/2009 - 5:45pm
The Herald provides the courtroom denouement for the saga of Margaret Greer, the woman who didn't like a state trooper telling her to move her car while waiting for her husband at Logan.
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Comments
you have to be kidding me--
you have to be kidding me-- this woman should be facing jail time, now she won't even have to pay a fine or demerits to her driving record? She merely needed to APOLOGIZE?!?!?!?!?!!
this is incredibly wrong. Am I the only person outraged by this?
pierce you have no idea
how many times things like this happen. You usually have to do 3-4 semi-serious crimes in order to get jailtime in Massachusetts. This kind of incident is usually considered semi-serious in the eyes of MA courts.
This resolution was made
This resolution was made after consideration of three factors: The agreement and approval of the trooper, who suffered no injury and lost no work because of the incident; the defendant's clean record and amenability to rehabilitation; and the fact that she expressed remorse and accountability prior to the first court date.
To this I would add that, while another trooper mentioned the scent of alcohol in Greer's vehicle, no OUI charge was sought or obtained. I mention this because it played a large part in the media coverage but no part in the legal proceedings.
At the end of the day, as Pete notes, this is a standard disposition for a case of this nature with this set of facts.
Pete, I think it is Boston area courts more than MA courts
In courts down the Cape, if someone shoots someone else they get charged with Attempted Murder. But, as you probably know, here in Boston, they'd get charged with Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon. "He only shot him in the leg...he obviously wasn't trying to kill him" is the argument here. Stuff like this probably happens here because of the overloaded court system and the overloaded jails.
Exactly what I was talking about with Quinn
Instead of shutting up at the "advice of counsel", Quinn should be meeting with the NTSB and cooperating with the investigation. That goodwill will probably squash any ill will from the prosecutor and judge in the case in a similar fashion. Given the larger effect of Quinn's action, I wouldn't expect him to get away with only a letter of apology and suspended sentence, but it could equate to community service instead of jailtime, for example.
yea you should read the comments on the herald!
It always makes me cringe to read the comments on the Herald and Globe knowing that these nitwits actually live around me.
But people do fail to realize that her age, race, gender and financial status probably had very little to do with her not going to jail. Her absence of a criminal and bad driving record were the main factors here.
I was thinking Quinns lawyer might want to supress her original statement somehow if it came down to a criminal case?
Why did you post this comment here?
It has absolutely nothing to do with the Greer case.
Actually, it does
He's saying that Quinn should follow Greer's example: show up, cooperate, apologize, don't be an "Everybody's out to get me!" defensive Masshole, and maybe he can work out a similarly light sentence.
There's a difference
Quinn injured over 40 people and destroyed millions of dollars of MBTA property. That's an order of magnitude more serious than what Greer did.
I addressed that
Not only did I address that in my initial post that you summarily dismissed, but Greer nearly killed a man somewhat intentionally with her personal vehicle and then fled the scene like a bat out of hell and lied through her teeth about where she'd just been and what she'd just done. In many ways that's far worse than how Quinn handled his royal mistake. Quinn's was an error of abject stupidity. Greer's was much more calculated once in motion and ended with an attempt to completely obfuscate her role in the earlier attempt on an officer's life. While Quinn's error in judgment put much more at risk, the action taken was far more trivial than dragging a trooper and then completely lying about it.
Whatever may come of it though, the point was that Greer's case is a direct example of exactly what I argued Quinn should be doing and not listening to the advice of his lawyer as was stated by the NTSB official earlier AND the outcome of Greer's case is exactly what I was arguing could come of being forthright about your role in a crime if done in a timely and appropriate way. It is exactly pertinent to this post and its tie-in to my arguments in the Quinn/lawyer update.
There was an old MST3K episode
where some white guy shot a Mexican and when the cops showed up,one of the Msties said, "Well...you're rich and white, I don't see a problem".