The presumption of innocence is applicable inside of a courtroom during a trial, not to the expression of opinion outside of a courtroom.

There are two morals to this story:
• Always wear your seatbelt.
• Don’t drink and drive.

Please spare us the sanctimonious bs.

Even if this goes to trial, and Leyritz is, say, acquitted, it doesn’t change the fact that a 30 year old woman, a mother, is dead.

It doesn’t change the police report that says “He failed several field-sobriety exercises, including walking and turning and touching his finger to his nose.”

It just means he had a good lawyer, and/or that she should’ve worn her seatbelt.

I hope this doesnt sound insensitve or anything but have anyone ever heard of the legal concept of innocent until proven guilty. Why dont we wait for a trial before we start assigning prison sentences to people. I sure hope none of you are ever called to serve on a jury because you would have decided a defendant’s guilt or innocence on the basis of a newspaper report, unless of course someone on this site was actually present at the accident and has first hand knowledge of what happened.

Punishment won’t bring this young mother back from the dead or stop the next accident from happening.We all need to pray for both families to
have the strength to find forgiveness and peace in their hearts and minds

I couldn’t agree with this more. I couldn’t image how terrible for her family. Hopefully, he gets enough/more punishment.

Leonard Little only got “90 days in jail, four years probation and 1000 hours of community service,” despite killing someone while driving with a BAL of .19.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Little

I hope Leyritz’s punishment is far more severe.

For some reason, seeing the maximum at 16 years depresses me. 16 years for taking an innocent life?
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He’ll probably get less than that. That’s the upsetting part.

With original research (thanks Google), apparently, combined with the two charges of DUI property damage (max: 1 year) and DUI manslaughter (max: 15 years), the maximum he could get in the state of Florida is… 16 years with $11,000 in fines, not counting the civil cases.

For some reason, seeing the maximum at 16 years depresses me. 16 years for taking an innocent life? Because the guy willingly made a ridiculously stupid mistake? Come on here.

The victim was a mother of two children on the way home from her job at a Ft. Lauderdale steakhouse.

I have absolutely no sympathy for Leyritz. It will be interesting to see how drunk he actually was. It seems to me that one would have to be very, very drunk to run a red light.