Criminal Negligence

I watch a lot of news from around the world, but few stories have caused my blood to boil like the case of Paddy Brogan.

Mr. Brogan was charged with criminal negligence and impaired driving causing death following an incident just outside of North Sydney, where he hit and killed a six-year-old boy with his vehicle. He had been drinking, and his blood alcohol level was well over the legal limit.

Mr. Brogan was acquitted of causing the boy’s death after pleading guilty to driving drunk.

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably astounded and baffled that this scenario is even possible. How can you be drunk behind the wheel and kill someone, yet still skate on criminal charges? It’s unheard of.

That is, unless you have connections.

Paddy Brogan’s brother is Nash Brogan, one of the most well known lawyers in Cape Breton. The defense team consisted of Nash and Derrick Kimball. It must be nice to have clout.

The arguments made in this case are almost inconceivable to the average person. The defense claimed that even though Brogan was under the influence, he was not driving drunk. Such an argument seems redundant to me, but they suggest that his blood alcohol level was not high enough to constitute his being labeled as drunk, and they claim there is a very important distinction between “drunk” and “impaired”.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of another instance of a court of law making or recognizing that distinction. As far as the law is concerned, when you’re over the limit, you’re over, and splitting hairs over terminology won’t help you.

Were the tables turned, the Kimball-Brogan crew would be spewing precedent and screaming, “drunk is drunk,” and any suggestion to the contrary would be laughed out of court in minutes. I guess it’s easier to be hypocritical when you’re defending one of your own.

Another argument states, and experts testified, that even a sober and alert driver would have been unable to avoid this accident (and I use the word accident very reluctantly). According to testimony, Brogan only had a little more than a second to react, and any driver is incapable of averting disaster with so little time.

While there may be some accuracy to that from a mathematical perspective, it’s pushing the boundaries of the truth when you look at the big picture. If you’re sober driving through a residential area, you’re expecting to see kids roaming around, and you adjust your driving accordingly. If you were to see a boy on a bike up ahead and moments later he disappeared, you’d automatically become more alert and slow down, wondering where he went and slowing down in case he popped out of nowhere. It happens, and when sober, you’d make allowances for that.

A man who has been drinking is likely not thinking about little boys on bikes when he’s behind the wheel. He’s thinking about driving straight and not swerving, whether there’s a cop around the next turn, and whether he smells like booze.

Regardless of the testimony, you could never convince me that the driver’s impairment didn’t affect his reaction time. Even assuming the experts are correct, it can easily be said that his impairment did in fact contribute to the occurrence of the incident overall, and that should be significant enough to warrant punishment.

But the most infuriating aspect of this case were the statements made by defense attorney Kimball on the CTV news the day after the verdict. For an otherwise intelligent and educated man to appear on television and make ridiculous statements was embarrassing to watch, as I heard him suggest that this little boy’s parents were somehow responsible for his death.

Can you imagine? He said that accidents like this might be avoided if parents kept a closer eye on their kids. Maybe that’s not exactly pointing the finger, but it translates into blame as far as I’m concerned. It’s hard to fathom the amount of nerve and insensitivity necessary to make statements like that.

Sure, we’re responsible for watching our kids, but it’s unreasonable to expect parents to run around holding on to the back of their son’s bicycle seat. No fancy law degree should be able to convince parents that responsibility for a vehicular fatality involving alcohol should be blamed on anyone other than the driver of the car. Period. And it’s reckless to infer otherwise.

People all over Cape Breton are outraged at the result of this verdict, as well they should be. Not only because it defies logic, but because if it were anyone else, they’d already be in jail.