Post by RonBallard on Feb 25, 2010 19:54:55 GMT -5
Man Got Eight Years for Deaths From Accelerating Toyota
Radley Balko | February 22, 2010
ABC News reports on the case of Koua Fong Lee, a Laotian immigrant serving eight years in a Minnesota prison for vehicular manslaughter. Lee was driving a 1996 Toyota Camry, when he accelerated to 70-90 mph, ran two stop signs, then struck another car, killing three of its occupants. Lee says the car accelerated on its own, and testified that he exclaimed to his family that the car's brakes weren't working in the run-up to the crash. The families of the victims are joining the effort to win Lee's release:
"I was angry for a moment, but when I came to my senses and thought about it, I didn't understand it," said Quincy Adams whose son and grandson were among those killed. "I can't believe that a guy with his pregnant wife, a kid in a car seat, his father-in-law and a brother-in-law in the car, would purposely be speeding up this ramp like that," said Bridgette Trice, whose seven-year old daughter later died from injuries suffered in the accident.
She said the news stories about Toyota's problems led her to reconsider what happened in the accident that killed her daughter.
"Maybe there is something to what Mr. Lee said was going on with him in his car, that he couldn't stop, that he tried his hardest, and the brakes, that his car wouldn't stop," said Ms. Trice.
"He's never wavered on his story that his brakes were bad," she added.
The 1996 Camry isn't part of Toyota's recent massive recall, but it was subject to a separate recall in the 1990s due to sudden acceleration related to the cruise control feature. That recall was not introduced at Lee's trial. The article notes that there have been 17 acceleration complaints about the model Lee was driving, though it doesn't say if that's an unusually high number in comparison to other makes and models.
If the car was defective, Lee was of course wrongly convicted and imprisoned, and deserves not only release, but a hefty payout from both Toyota and the state of Minnesota. He was convicted in 2006, and we're now learning that both Toyota and federal regulators knew about the acceleration problem as early as 2003.
Radley Balko | February 22, 2010
ABC News reports on the case of Koua Fong Lee, a Laotian immigrant serving eight years in a Minnesota prison for vehicular manslaughter. Lee was driving a 1996 Toyota Camry, when he accelerated to 70-90 mph, ran two stop signs, then struck another car, killing three of its occupants. Lee says the car accelerated on its own, and testified that he exclaimed to his family that the car's brakes weren't working in the run-up to the crash. The families of the victims are joining the effort to win Lee's release:
"I was angry for a moment, but when I came to my senses and thought about it, I didn't understand it," said Quincy Adams whose son and grandson were among those killed. "I can't believe that a guy with his pregnant wife, a kid in a car seat, his father-in-law and a brother-in-law in the car, would purposely be speeding up this ramp like that," said Bridgette Trice, whose seven-year old daughter later died from injuries suffered in the accident.
She said the news stories about Toyota's problems led her to reconsider what happened in the accident that killed her daughter.
"Maybe there is something to what Mr. Lee said was going on with him in his car, that he couldn't stop, that he tried his hardest, and the brakes, that his car wouldn't stop," said Ms. Trice.
"He's never wavered on his story that his brakes were bad," she added.
The 1996 Camry isn't part of Toyota's recent massive recall, but it was subject to a separate recall in the 1990s due to sudden acceleration related to the cruise control feature. That recall was not introduced at Lee's trial. The article notes that there have been 17 acceleration complaints about the model Lee was driving, though it doesn't say if that's an unusually high number in comparison to other makes and models.
If the car was defective, Lee was of course wrongly convicted and imprisoned, and deserves not only release, but a hefty payout from both Toyota and the state of Minnesota. He was convicted in 2006, and we're now learning that both Toyota and federal regulators knew about the acceleration problem as early as 2003.