Absolutely. I think my goal was to both provide a play-by-play (almost used a double entendre there) and throw in some color from the courtroom. All in 140 characters! This Twitter thing is tough. I'm a wordy guy, as you can tell already.
But clearly it's a way to do things in an untraditional, non-MSM format. And just throwing out the facts would be, like 98 percent of most court proceedings, dull as dirt.
I won't bemoan the sheer number of pixels spilled on what amounts to little more than a drunk driving case with a lying defendant or whether we should be proud of our interest in reading/reporting on this story. After all, like most beltway insiders, I am bored at work and easily titillated by [anything in brackets].
Here's my question: Why didn't you post any of the original filings (Complaint, response, police report, etc) in the case? But seriously, why not share the record? The Virginia Courts make it difficult to get these materials (in truth, I barely looked) and curious minds want to know. Reporting in the internet age is all about connecting the dots, providing context and curating an information-rich environment.
Hard to argue with your first point. As to your second, I simply didn't anticipate there being that much interest in any of this. Shows you what I know. I went and looked at the court file, just to confirm that the case actually existed, but never made any copies because I didn't really think it was that big of a deal. It's my fault. The item went up at the end of last week, and then the trial was Monday, and the file wasn't available. I'll get better at that. Good points by you.
OK, as one who has been working on legislation to ban texting while driving, I am not certain how to even seriously approach banning this without being laughed out of town...
I think legislation that would ban sexual activity while driving, at least on the interstate highways, is utterly appropriate and should be seriously considered by all legislative bodies. Who would dare laugh at such a proposal? Who I say?
Your story ends with a comment that Ms. X's mother's insurance will likely cover the $22K judgement against Trad. I don't understand that. I realize that it was her car, but surely he wasn't a listed driver on the policy. The story makes it sound like it was the daughter only who gave permission for Trad to have the car. Why should the mother's insurance get dinged for his negligence? And why should her rates go up? Will the insurance company sue to get the payment back from Tran directly? The way the story ends, it sounds like the only real cost to Tran was the original DUI fine - that's hardly fair.
I'm afraid I am not well versed enough in the ways of crashes caused by unauthorized drivers not on the insurance policy to say how this works, but I know it was the mother's insurance company that provided the defense in this case. Fair? Did you say fair? That word was not mentioned during the trial.
Hi Tom. Who were the attorneys in this case?
The plaintiff's attorney was Douglas R. Stevens of Washington. Defending Mr. Trad was Frank Prior of Fairfax. Defending Mr. al-Damari was Jennifer Parrish of Fredericksburg. The judge was Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Brett A. Kassabian, who was not really sure why I was there, but tolerated me anyway. I guess he had to.
To me, this case is a near perfect example of how our legal code contributes to unnecessary hardship and complexity. Given the single requirement that drivers must have car insurance, the reasons for an accident have no meaning. It could be glare from the sun, debris on the road, downpours, a stopped car with no brake lights, drunk driver, asthmatic driver who is trying to use inhaler, a diabetic driver with high blood sugar. The reasons can be anything. So keep the code short and simple. Get rid of the DWI code, cell phone codes and actually everything except the basic rules of obeying traffic signs, lights and yielding to emergency authorities. Let the insurance firms work the details, and resolve. That is what they are paid for. The role of state insurance commissioners is to analyze the incident data for trends, make recommendations to traffic engineers to address roads that are designed poorly, and keep pressure on the insurance industry to minimize customer rates.
You had me until the part about getting rid of the DWI code. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there should be some criminal prohibition about driving while intoxicated.
Leaving the rest of the deal to the insurance firms is not going to make a lot of folks happy who've had experience in that area. That often results in cases going to court rather than settling or paying, making everyone involved unhappy. IMHO, as the kids would say.
the reason everyone got so excited about this is that they thought he was saying he was both driving and having sex, but what he meant was someone else was driving while he was having sex, and both a judge and a jury didn't believe him, right?
That is an accurate summary fit for Twitter. But the thing is, Mr. Trad had previously been convicted of DWI, with the key part being the D, Driving. Even stranger, under Virginia law, the civil jury could not be told of that conviction unless he had pleaded guilty and admitted his drunk driving in the criminal case. He didn't. Not sure if he was getting good legal advice from the start, but it's one way to craft a DWI defense.
Here's the thing: When the trooper got there, no one was in the car, and the trooper didn't see anyone driving. In a standard DWI case, that can make things pretty tricky. Don't know if Trad knew that as he was standing alongside the Beltway that night, but claiming he didn't know who was driving was probably not a bad idea, from a defense attorney's perspective.
However, a good samaritan came along who pulled Trad out from behind the wheel, and who saw the other passenger lying elsewhere in the car. In this case, that made it an easier matter to sort out, both for the DWI judge and for the civil jury.
It's a thought. Tough to prove without a coherent (at the time) victim or any physical evidence, I think the prosecutors would say.
Well, these are the consequences we've got. He's not facing any jail time unless he violates the terms of his DWI probation, which last until September. 12 months jail is hanging over his head, though he'd have to do some really serious violating to get that.
He also must complete the ASAP (Alcohol Safety Action Program) requirements. He also has been given a restricted license, to drive to and from work, to and from medical appointments, and to and from ASAP meetings, and getting caught driving would be a problem, though probably not jailable the first time.
I believe Mr. Trad was most interested in not getting a DWI conviction in the first place, though, which is why he tried to shift the blame first to Ms. X, the young lady in the car, and then to his friend who wasn't even there. That didn't work, but he tried.
He also has the consequence of being the subject of all this attention, forever lasting on the Internet, and the focus of the unforgettable #beltwaysex hashtag. So there's that.
That sounds right to me. And someone mentioned yesterday that the mother's insurance company could pursue Trad for reimbursement of the $22K, though that seems like more trouble than it's worth.
So basically what you have here is a punk kid who crashed his girlfriend's mother's car, then lied about being the driver, then claimed he was having sex with the girl - couldn't care enough about his own case to stick around for the verdict and is now using Twitter and various radio stations to parlay his DUI into some sort of mini celebrity? He deserves what's coming to him - that this case is the first thing that comes up any time a future employer does a Google search for his name.
His Twitter account also is not going to endear him to a certain portion of the population. You'll have to find that one on your own, though.
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