I suspect the real crime this woman committed was Being Born Black (BBB).
Well at least according to the racist cops.
She was convicted of murder, because her 4 year old child was killed while they were jaywalking.
I have hear of the crime DWB, or Driving While Black, which is something Black people get illegally stopped by the police all the time for. But this is the first time I have heard of a person being jailed for BBB or Being Born Black.
Mom whose son killed by hit-run driver asks compassion in her sentencing
By Mike Morris
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The family of a Cobb County mother facing jail time after her 4-year-old son who was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver said Monday that they hope a judge shows compassion when she is sentenced this week.
Raquel Nelson, 30, was convicted earlier this month of homicide by vehicle in the second degree, crossing roadway elsewhere than at crosswalk and reckless conduct in the Oct. 29, 2010 incident where she and her three children were trying to cross four-lane Austell Road to their apartment after getting off a Cobb Community Transit bus.
Nelson’s 4-year-old son was struck by a car and killed. Nelson and her younger daughter suffered minor injuries, and her older daughter was not injured.
Jerry L. Guy, the driver who admitted hitting the child when pleading guilty to hit-and-run, served a six-month sentence. He was released in October and will serve the remainder of a five-year sentence on probation.
Nelson is facing up to three years in prison when she is sentenced on Tuesday, and she discussed her case Monday with Ann Curry, anchor of NBC’s "Today" show.
That maximum sentence would be "three years away from the two [children] that I have left,” Nelson said.
Nelson’s aunt, Loretta Williams, said on the show that she and the rest of Nelson’s family hope that the judge “is compassionate and will let my niece remain with her other children.”
Nelson said she and her children crossed Austell Road outside a crosswalk because the nearest one was .3 mile away, and she was “trying to hurry up and get home so we wouldn’t have to be in the dark.”
She said that she had accepted that Guy, who had also been convicted of similar charges in 1997, served only six months for striking and killing her son, then fleeing the scene.
“Even though he has had a history of it, nobody gets up that day and says, ‘I’m going to kill a 4-year-old,’” Nelson said.
“However, to come after me so much harder than they did him is a slap in the face,” she said.
She said that she didn’t think that the jury that convicted her “could relate to what I was going through. All of the jurors stated they’ve never ridden public transportation, and they’ve never really been in my shoes, so I think there was maybe not a jury of peers.”
Friday, July 22, 2011
The Streets and the Courts Failed Raquel Nelson. Can Advocacy Save Her?
by Tanya Snyder on July 22, 2011
Last week, we reported on the horrific story of Raquel Nelson, whose four-year-old son was killed as she attempted to cross the street with him to reach their home. Nelson was convicted of reckless conduct, improperly crossing a roadway and second-degree homicide by vehicle, all for the crime of being a pedestrian in the car-centric Atlanta suburbs. The conviction carried a sentence of up to 36 months, while the driver who killed Nelson’s son — who’d been drinking and using painkillers before getting behind the wheel — got off with six months on a hit-and-run charge.
Many of you responded with outrage. The more information that came out, the more outrageous the charges against Nelson became. From an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story that came out the month after the incident:
On April 10, she and her three children — Tyler, 9, A.J., 4, and Lauryn, 3 — went shopping because the next day was Nelson’s birthday. They had pizza, went to Wal-Mart and missed a bus, putting them an hour late getting home. Nelson, a student at Kennesaw State University, said she never expected to be out after dark, especially with the children.
When the Cobb County Transit bus finally stopped directly across from Somerpoint Apartments, night had fallen. She and the children crossed two lanes and waited with other passengers on the raised median for a break in traffic. The nearest crosswalks were three-tenths of a mile in either direction, and Nelson wanted to get her children inside as soon as possible. A.J. carried a plastic bag holding a goldfish they’d purchased.
“One girl ran across the street,” Nelson said. “For some odd reason, I guess he saw the girl and decided to run out behind her. I said, ‘Stop, A.J.,’ and he was in the middle of the street so I said keep going. That’s when we all got hit.”
Look at all the ways the design of the city’s transportation system failed Nelson and her family. Bus service runs once an hour. There is no crosswalk to connect a bus stop with an apartment building it serves – nor any crosswalk for three blocks. A convicted hit-and-run driver who is half-blind and has alcohol and pain-killers in his system is considered less of a threat to the public than a woman who rides the bus and walks with her kids.
And as Radley Balko wrote in the Huffington Post, the odds were stacked against Nelson from the start.
“During jury questioning, none of the jurors who would eventually convict Nelson raised their hands when asked if they relied on public transportation,” Balko wrote. “Just one juror admitted to ever having ridden a public bus, though in response to a subsequent question, a few said they’d taken a bus to Braves games.”
Indeed, as David Goldberg wrote on T4America’s campaign blog, “Nelson, 30 and African-American, was convicted on the charge this week by six jurors who were not her peers. All were middle-class whites” and did not ride public transit. “In other words, none had ever been in Nelson’s shoes.”
So if you were cautiously awaiting further details before getting really and fully furious about Nelson’s conviction, go ahead: It’s time.
Many readers have asked if there’s any way you can help. Some expressed a desire to contribute to Nelson’s legal fund. Others wanted to know if they could write a letter to someone demanding that Nelson’s charges be expunged.
I’ve left two messages over the past week with Nelson’s lawyer asking these (and other) questions. Neither message has been returned. So I can’t answer your questions about a legal defense fund. Nelson’s sentencing hearing is on Tuesday.
But there are now two petitions circulating. One, circulating at the Care2 petition site, asks the governor to overturn Nelson’s verdict. At the moment I’m writing this, the petition has gathered 4,369 signatures, on the way to its goal of 10,000. Another, which currently has 1,061 signatures at Change.org, asks not only for Nelson’s release but for the installation of a crosswalk. That petition is addressed to the Cobb County Transportation Department, Cobb County Commissioner District 1 (Helen Goreham), and the Solicitor General (Barry Morgan).
We’ll stay tuned for news on Nelson’s sentence on Tuesday and let you know the minute we hear.
Grieving Mother Faces 36 Months In Jail For Jaywalking After Son Is Killed By Hit-And-Run Driver
On April 10, 2010, Raquel Nelson lost her 4-year-old son. Nelson was crossing a busy Marietta, Georgia, street with her son and his two siblings when they were struck by a hit-and-run driver. Police were able to track down the driver, Jerry Guy, who later admitted he had been drinking and had taken painkillers the night of the accident. He was also mostly blind in one eye. Guy had already been convicted of two prior hit-and-runs. He pleaded guilty, served six months of his five-year sentence, and was released last October.
If it ended there, this story would merely be tragic. But it gets worse. Last week Nelson herself was convicted on three charges related to her son's death: reckless conduct, improperly crossing a roadway and second-degree homicide by vehicle. Each is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 12 months in prison. Nelson could spend up to six times as many months in jail as the man who struck her son and then fled the scene. Nelson's crime: jaywalking.
Nelson had taken her children with her to shop for groceries and supplies for her upcoming birthday party. The working mother and college student regularly took public transportation, but she and her kids missed their intended bus that night, putting them an hour behind schedule. The bus they caught pulled up to their stop after nightfall, and Nelson stepped off, clutching her kids' hands through the shopping bags wrapped around her wrists. Nelson's apartment complex sits across the street from the bus stop, but the nearest crosswalk is three-tenths of a mile away. So Nelson did what everyone who uses that bus stop does, and what the other disembarking passengers all did that night: She crossed one side of the divided highway to the median, where she waited for a break in the traffic.
Several people then crossed the street before Nelson thought it was safe. She waited with her kids. But when others started to move towards the road, Nelson's son must taken it as a cue it was time to go. She felt his grip on her hand loosen and he darted out into the road. She followed. Guy's car struck Nelson, her son and her daughter, and the boy died.
Over the next month, as Guy was processed by Georgia's criminal justice system, Nelson buried and grieved for her son. But on May 14, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a long story under the headline, "Jaywalkers take deadly risks." The article mentioned Nelson and her son, pointing out that she hadn't been charged with any crime. Three days later, the Georgia Solicitor General's office charged Nelson with the three misdemeanors.
Nelson was convicted last week, and she'll be sentenced on July 26.
Nelson, a black woman, was convicted by an all-white jury. She relies on public transportation; she is a pedestrian in a car-oriented Atlanta suburb. During jury questioning, none of the jurors who would eventually convict Nelson raised their hands when asked if they relied on public transportation. Just one juror admitted to ever having ridden a public bus, though in response to a subsequent question, a few said they'd taken a bus to Braves games.
Nelson was not judged by a jury of her peers; she was convicted by a jury that had no understanding of the circumstances that compelled her to cross the street where she did.
According to the Daily Mail, other tenants in Nelson's apartment complex had complained to the city about their difficulties getting home from the bus stop. The Transportation in America blog shows a photo of the stretch of highway where Nelson crossed as evidence city planners are guilty of "poor planning and dangerous designs."
No one forced Raquel Nelson to jaywalk the night of her son's death. The suggestion here isn't that the city owes Nelson anything for the consequences of her actions. But there is something to be said for designing cities with an eye toward how people actually behave, not how urban planners wish they would. Putting a bus stop in the middle of a busy highway, three-tenths of a mile away from the nearest crosswalk -- while zoning for apartments and businesses on the other side of the same street -- is poor planning.
But it's really the decision to prosecute Nelson that's outrageous. That the state can prosecute someone doesn't mean that it should. And it seems that a little empathy would be in order here.
Prosecutors have a great deal of discretion over when to bring charges, and over what charges they bring. If those in the office of Solicitor General Barry Morgan are charging Nelson to punish her for her jaywalking, they're misguided -- it's hard to conceive of a more potent punishment than the loss of a child. If their aim was to make an example of a devastated mother to prevent others from jaywalking, they're delusional.
But this isn't even the first time they've done it. According to the Journal-Constitution, in 2010, Morgan's office charged another woman whose child was struck and killed while the two were jaywalking.
A recent Pro Publica/Frontline investigation found prosecutors seem especially prone to find criminality -- then over-charge once they do -- in instances of child death, even when the evidence suggests the death was an accident.
Earlier this month, I wrote a column criticizing the so-called Caylee's Law, the bill sweeping state legislatures across the country in response to the Casey Anthony verdict. I mentioned a number of scenarios in which innocent parents or caretakers might be prosecuted under the law. The response from the law's supporters was that a prosecutor would never charge a grieving parent under those circumstances. This case shows that such prosecutions can and do certainly happen.
There are nearly always strong incentives for prosecutors to over-charge defendants. Prosecutors receive praise, and are reelected and promoted based on their ability to win convictions. They're rarely punished or held accountable for over-charging, or committing misconduct en route to a conviction. They're also rarely praised or credited when they decline to bring charges in the interest of justice.
There are a couple of solutions here. Lawmakers should anticipate ways laws might be abused or misapplied -- even in scenarios that seem unlikely -- and craft laws in ways that minimize the chance that they'll be abused. The justice system should not rely on the goodwill of prosecutors.
Another solution: We need to start holding prosecutors accountable for bringing unjust charges like those brought against Nelson -- even if they may technically be legally permissible.
In nearly all jurisdictions, "prosecutor" is a political position. That means voters can realign the incentives. If Cobb County residents want to make it clear that the prosecution of Raquel Nelson is an abuse of power and a waste of resources, they could let Solicitor General Barry Morgan know, both now and next Election Day.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the prosecuting office as that of Cobb County District Attorney Patrick Head. Misdemeanors in Georgia fall under the jurisdiction of the solicitor general's office, not the district attorney's.
Follow Radley Balko on Twitter: www.twitter.com/radleybalko