Stavinski Kills One, Injures three in Drunk driving accident | Page 5 | Golden Skate

Stavinski Kills One, Injures three in Drunk driving accident

Only a danger to himself, on a moped? Ok. Supposing Oda, driving drunk on a moped, had fallen asleep, or lost control on wet pavement, or for some other reason lost control of the bike and gone out into the path of traffic...causing a car to swerve to avoid hitting him, which then hits another car, killing one person and injuring several others. At that point, was he "just a danger to himself"?

All this crap about "Oda was just on a moped" is just that, crap. He had an above limit alcohol level and was on a vehicle on a public road. Period. End of story. I am sure he is reading about this issue and thanking God that he didn't cause a similar event.

It's not crap! He slept, and was arrested just because it was a checking point.
He thought he had sobered it up. My point is his case has absolutely nothing to do with Maxim Staviisky's.

if you like so much words I'll change "Only a danger to himself" to "Mostly a danger to himself"
 
From the mother: "She assured she will not demand that Maxim pays her damages, but insisted that he confess to the murder."

Hopefully the word "murder" was just the result of translating one language into another. Idiotic, stupid, reckless and selfish as Maxim's actions may have been, he certainly had no murderous intention. Causing a death is not the same as having the malicious intent of murder.
 
Hopefully the word "murder" was just the result of translating one language into another.
If you note, that whole article is not very well translated. The last sentence is "Vesselina was expecting on Tuesday the dead body of her fiancé at the home of his parents". This is not a professional translation, so I think the word "murder" is likewise inaccurate.
 
He thought he had sobered it up. My point is his case has absolutely nothing to do with Maxim Staviisky's.

Oh, right. His case has absolutely nothing to do with Staviski's. Other than that they both were driving drunk. Silly me. :disapp:

Spin it any way you like. Both are guilty of the same offense. Sure, Oda had a lower alcohol level and reportedly had tried to sleep it off. Doesn't matter. He was still drunk when caught, hours later. And you can not tell me that he had no other options, if he was going to be drinking at all, than driving. I doubt that the boy can't afford a cab. He's lucky that his DUI did not result in tragic consequences. Staviski was drunk, apparantly speeding and driving reckless. He killed someone, Oda didn't. But both were DRIVING DRUNK.
 
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Re: the translation cited by Zanzibar and Ptichka: Grief stricken people are also not likely to use the correct legal term.. She wants an admission that he killed her son. After all, how often do people say "I was robbed" because someone broke into their house and stole something, even though there was no force or fear (so no robbery), and the crime was a burglary?

Kasey --
Staviski and Oda share only one offense in common -- DUI. The reports of Staviski's conduct in California would have him facing charges for second degree murder (since there were problems with his driving other than alcohol, not to mention the warnings. The two are not like -- Oda committed one crime; Staviski is reported to have committed at leat two.
 
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Grief stricken people are also not likely to use the correct legal term.. She wants an admission that he killed her son. After all, how often do people say "I was robbed" because someone broke into their house and stole something, even though there was no force or fear (so no robbery), and the crime was a burglary?

Quite honestly? He may not have intentionally murdered that young man. But well clearly he had very little disregard for the lives of others when he got into that monsterous weapon, loaded with alcohol in his system. And the fact is too, that he was stopped a few minutes earlier by cops and told to be more careful, and what does this guy do. He puts his foot on the pedal and goes over 50 miles an hour, while turning right.
 
IMO, there is a huge moral difference between a young kid who takes affirmative steps to eliminate (or at least minimize) the danger he might pose to other, both in choice of vehicle and in steps to get the alcohol out of his system, even if he fails at doing so as opposed to a grown man who has repeatedly been warned about reckless driving, and still makes choices (again dealing with vehicle and alcohol amount) that endanger others.

Oda -- by trying to "sleep it off" and only driving a moped effectively acknowledged that other people have rights and lives that need to be respected and protected, even if his attempts to honor that principal did not succeed. Staviski, OTOH, if all reports are true and they may not be all true , made it clear by ignoring warnings, drinking, and driving a Hummer that he didn't give a rat's a** about respecting/protecting the rights/lives of others.

ITA.

Many years ago me and my family had a car accident caused by a drunk pedestrian. We could have died. No, I'm not going to lecture you all on how to live your lives.
 
Oda

Reflecting on Oda, how many of you still think that Oda should not have been punished for dui?

I review multiple FS sites. Very few people were against the legal consequences of Oda's illgal action. Nobody claimed it acceptable to drink & drive, break the law, or endanger one's life and those of others.

Yet, a lot of people seem to have felt that the social sanction was too severe (e.g., suspended from major competitions, press conference, top headline news), judging from the standards/norms in the US or somewhere else. Indeed, I just reviewed the thread on Oda and saw the above poster him/herself noting that monetary fine could have been enough (post #10).

http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17207

It also appeared to have been confusing for some people that the Japanese Skating Federation appeared to have played an initiative role to punish him, even before the legal judgment is finalized.

I am not an expert so that I shouldn't comment on the legal consequences. But in Oda's case, it seems that the legal consequences would be relatively minor because he did not make any other offenses:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/飲酒運転

His legal consequence should be indeed a lot different from Maxim's case because of the difference in the level of offense. A moped and a car are treated differently by the law. The alcohol level is a lot different, which leads to different legal consequences. Further, an action that could have endangered a life is treated differently by the law from an action that actually endangered lives of others. Oda did not even drive more than 50 meters before he was stopped at a check point. He was stopped not because he was driving badly but because it was a random check point. Not to mention, he did not injure/kill anyone.

For Oda, social consequence was a lot more serious than the legal consequence that would be relatively minor. That's what a lot of posters were against.

But these were often explained by the cultural differences between Japan and Western countries. That is, Japan is a society that emphasizes shame and group responsibility in addition to individual responsibility.

Further, norms about DUI seem to be different. People in Japan feel more and more concerned about DUI these days, which leads to different social sanction apart from the law. For example, some companies fire their employees for DUI.

In Japan as well, there are discussions about the appropriateness of Oda's punishment by the Federation. Some people see it too severe, while others see it too light. But that's again, sanction at the societal level, which can be quite arbitrary. But his legal responsibility and its consequence are quite another issue.

Finally, let me emphasize again that nobody in the FS forums seems to have said that DUI itself is fine and acceptable. I don't advocate it at all, either. Very few people said that he should not be punished by the law, either.
 
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Thank you, Kasey!

We have a lot of scooters and bicycles where I live. It's an urban area with a large student population, and the only public transport is a limited, dirty, crime ridden, totally unreliable bus system. I have witnessed a cyclist cause an accident because he somehow didn't notice the line of cars stalled at a traffic light ahead of him.

We also have had 2 jaywalkers suffer terrible injuries -- one was left in a persistent vegetative state -- just at my university. It's an urban commuter school, not a walled-off residential campus. The drivers in both cases were found to be driving within the law and appropriately for prevailing conditions.

You don't have to be driving a Hummer to cause a tragedy. The people in the accidents I've described were not drunk AFAIK -- just not acting with good sense. But driving any vehicle, or even walking, while "impaired" in any way can result in significant harm.

Susan
 
Following your logic, a pickpocket and an armed robber are basically guilty of the same crime...

If a pickpocket isn't armed, then he has absolutely no ability to commit armed robbery. If someone has 2 drinks and drives, they have the same ability to kill someone as someone else who is older and a more experienced drinker who has had 3 or 4 drinks. They are both "armed" the same. The same potential is there.
 
If a pickpocket isn't armed, then he has absolutely no ability to commit armed robbery. If someone has 2 drinks and drives, they have the same ability to kill someone as someone else who is older and a more experienced drinker who has had 3 or 4 drinks. They are both "armed" the same. The same potential is there.

Legal consequences are different depending on the alcohol level.

All traffic offenses could have similar "potential." Yet, they are not treated in the same way.
 
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... If someone has 2 drinks and drives, they have the same ability to kill someone as someone else who is older and a more experienced drinker who has had 3 or 4 drinks. They are both "armed" the same. The same potential is there.

The potential for a deadly accident where alcohol is combined with speeding or other reckless driving (such as going into another lane) is simply much greater than with alcohol alone.
 
Following your logic, a pickpocket and an armed robber are basically guilty of the same crime...

Not so. DUI is a crime in and of itself. I am not aware of any jurisdiction in which you have not committed DUI until you hurt or kill somebody. You need only exceed the BAC level allowed by statute. It is perfectly reasonable to state that both Oda and Maxim (assuming all charges are true) are guilty of the same crime of DUI: driving with a BAC in excess of that allowed by local law.

Nobody has said Oda is guilty of 2nd degree murder or 1st degree manslaughter or any other charge that might result when one's actions cause death. Only that he was no less in violation of local *DUI* law than was Maxim.

Incidentally ... in some jurisdictions, a pickpocket and an armed robber could in fact face overlapping charges :) It is not universal to charge people with totally different crimes dependent on the degree of intimidation or violence involved in taking of money or property. Sometimes the base charge is levied strictly per the amount of money/value of the property involved. Intimidation and violence charges are tack-ons or totally separate charges.

I don't know for sure, but I think it's a tactic to give prosecutors wiggle room. I can see that it allows for wiggle room both in plea bargaining and in convincing a jury to convict a defendant of *something.*

Susan
 
Nobody has said Oda is guilty of 2nd degree murder or 1st degree manslaughter or any other charge that might result when one's actions cause death. Only that he was no less in violation of local *DUI* law than was Maxim.
(emphasis added by yuriko)

Yes, that's true.

But the combination of DUI with other kinds of offenses is what makes a great difference in the legal consequence.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/飲酒運転

Oda surely violated DUI, and should be punished for that. But he did not do any other kinds of offenses that could have made his punishement severer.
 
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Oda commited a crime no doubt about it. But it's not comparable to Maxim's.

If Oda was driving his moped in Bulgaria, his blood alcohol content would have been ruled as completely legal. He was only at .03.. Reports are that Oda wasn't driving weird, he was just stopped at a random check point.

Maxim on other hand was over two times the Bulgarian limit 1.2 (almost ten times the amount Oda was at) and Maxim was already stopped by a police officer and told that he was driving recklessly. Maxim's response was to take a turn on a wet road at over 50 miles an hour (100 Km)

I'm not excusing Oda, and I think the Japanese federation is right to punish him. But there's a vast difference between Maxim's offense and Oda's offense.
 
This thread is bordering on it's ok to drive while you're drunk but don't kill anyone. C'mon.

Oda was stopped by the Police and that is what saved him from killing somebody. i don't know why you can't understand that?

Because he was stopped, he will be charged with reckless driving. What that punishment carries in Japan, he has to face. I don't think the JSF should be adding to that, but that's my opinion.

If only the Bulgarian Police had prevented poor Max from continuing driving the accident would not have happened.

Joe
 
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