Driving me mad

Just minutes after the Baltimore Ravens lost a playoff game this January because Lee Evans dropped a touchdown pass and Billy Cundiff shanked an easy field goal attempt, something a billion times worse than losing a football game happened right around the corner from our little corner of the world.

A lady named Beverly Moore had shopped at the Weis supermarket and then crossed Seven Courts Drive on foot on her way home, only to be hit and killed by a hit-and-run driver.

After three months of investigation, county police figured out who did it:  one David Grayson French, who lived right around the corner from the scene of the accident from which he drove away with impunity.  French has a checkered history with the criminal justice system; he was no stranger to local police and prosecutors.  One of his previous arrests was for driving while impaired, and of course, since he ran from the scene of this fatal accident, there is no way to prove whether or not he was drinking that chilly Sunday evening.  He was not man enough to turn himself in to the cops and admit what he did, but an anonymous tip to the law is what did him in.

His trial happened last week, and for the offense of running this woman over with his car and fleeing in the darkness that night provides, he was given a sentence of 18 months in jail, to be followed by four years of probation and a hundred hours of community service.

New inmate French

To recap: he got behind the wheel of a car, struck and killed a woman crossing the street with her groceries, drove off and did not confess, and then, once someone gave him up, lawyered up and got off with just a lousy 18 months, when the prosecutors asked the judge to give him 10 years.

And they wonder why we have no faith in the judicial system.