Topic : 03/16 Cheerleader Scandal

I can't believe what Brandi's lawyer did to her.  Her lawyer was supposed to help her not hurt her!    She was just 17 and minutes before going into court he tells her to sign a paper practically saying that she did run Daniel over.  That's wrong!      She got railroaded.     Why were there not tire impressions taken, which would have proved if Brandi's car was the one that made the tracks.  Daniel's sister is nothing but a liar and she proved that the day she was on the show.   She claims that she and her family were watching movies the night of the accident and could not have made a phone call to Branid telling her to come over to their house.    Is she stupid?     Unless her phone does not work while the t.v. is on  then she's lying.    She can't even get her stories straight.  Daniel threatened to kill himself if Brandi ever left him.  Sounds like he did just that.    Is that not the perfect revenge?    Daniel's mother's grief was very dramatic.  She was not in his life five years prior to his death and she just wants revenge.  She feels guilty for not being in her sons life and she's using Brandi as a scapegoat to ease all her guilt for not being there for her son.   

How do you know that her lawyer screwed her except by what you heard her say on the show?  Yes she was 17.  Yes she was undoubtedly scared - she was facing a charge of 1st degree murder.  Did her attorney have her sign an initial plea deal for involuntary manslaughter?  Probably.  But  the prosecutor's representative caught it and would not agree to involuntary manslaughter.   She admitted that she had to acknowledge that she knew the deal was corrected to voluntary manslaughter before she went in.   Did somebody tell her she might get 120 days for involuntary?  Maybe.  Did she assume she'd get that same sentence for voluntary?  Apparently.   Would she be spending life in prison if she'd gone to trial?  The prosecutor apparently thought so.   Maybe her attorney assumed she was smart enough to realize that when the plea bargain changed from involuntary to voluntary that there would also be a change in the expected sentence (she was an A student after all, and her parents appear to be reasonably intelligent.)   Did they assume wrong?  Uh, yes.   Are most felony cases in this country settled by a plea bargain?  Statistics say yes.  Do most people, after being in prison, look back and wish they'd at least tried their luck at trial?  Probably.   Did Brandi go to court and try to get her sentence overturned?  I think so.  Was she successful?  I think not.   Did the appeals court and her appeal attorney think her defense attorney had screwed her over?  Apparently not.   Do they have access to more facts of the case than we do?  One would have to assume so.   Is it a darned shame that our court system has to make plea bargains to avoid being swamped with so many cases there wouldn't be time to hear them all.  I think so.    Did Brandi get screwed?  No more than anybody else in the same circumstances.   

I know that a lot of people have  comments on this topic...forgiveness being a main issue.....unfortunately it is very easy to say forgive BUT unless you have been on the receiving end of such a crime as hit & run (family or person who was hit) you have no idea how to cope with it.  I know this from experience because my mother was involved in a case where the guy ran her down and then fled the scene.  My mother spent 3 weeks in ICU  in a medically induced comma (her injuries were so severe), followed by another 7 months in physio.  My mother is still alive but she suffered an ABI (acquired brain injury) and she can no longer communicate with us verbally and can no longer walk (she is wheelchair bound).  This is a terrible loss....I can no longer have a conversation with my mom (something people take for granted).  The guy who hit her got 6 months in house arrest, they said "they didn't want to destroy what he worked so hard for (referring to his having a job and being a productive member of society)".  They didn't care that he had just diminished my mothers quality of life.   

My response is simply first thing being if you are licensed & driving a motorized vehicle you are to be in control of your vehicle at all times.  I don't care whether the person jumps in front of you or not you nail the brakes and swerve hard to avoid hitting them....besides if you are alert you should see movement toward your vehicle and attempt to avoid.  And secondly if by chance you do not avoid the collision it is your responsibility as a citizen to stop your vehicle and call 911.  As soon as you flee, to me that is an admission of guilt, you flee because you are nervous you will get caught and consequenced....if it truly is an accident you would stop because the guilt would make you turn yourself in.   People who are old enough to drive should be deemed old enough to suffer the consequences.   

And for her parent to say, "Why waste her life too?"  I say what would you do if you were the parent of the boy instead of the parent of Brandi......would you forgive as easily.  Honestly now....would you forgive if it was your son she hit and the left there to die in the street.   

It's nice hearing from someone who has firsthand knowledge of the salient events and facts and is so able to objectively present them.  

Oh, you're from Virginia?  

You must have been visiting in Missouri the days you're referring to, otherwise where would you had gotten such drop-dead information. 

I don't live to far away from where this happend a matter of fact i know Daniel's mother Shelia. I only recently got to know her though my job, but i know who heart-broken to this day she still is and sitting her reading what some of the people have got to say about Brandi and Daniel makes me really sad. True i never got to know Daniel and i only know what Shelia tells me but i can't find in myself to belive that he would ever beat Brandi or tell her that he would kill him or her and her brother it honsently looks to me has Brandi and her famliy trying to find a way to make them feel better about the whole thing, so they are making the one who was KILLED the bad guy. If she just wanted to move on with her life why did she drive back? and why would she be going over 60 miles an hour in a trailer park where childern live and house are close toghter if she wasn't trying to hit him. Plus trying to make it look like the car was hit by a tree only makes her look more guilty to me because if it was truly by accident then why did she leave, why didn't she stay to tell the cops that she didn't mean to and i'm sorry but if it was truly in accident then she should have never told the court that it wasn't. If she didn't even believe in her case enough to tell the judge she didn't mean to do it, then why should i belive her. One thing that i do disagree with shelia about is, she really does need to move on but i do see how hard if would be for her to forgive and in her defense Shelia and her family was trying to move and trying to rebliud a good life but Brandi's famliy is who brought this whole up they wrote Dr. Phil and now they want her to move on, Forget about it, like it never happend but it did happend and no one change that. Brandi can still have kids, Brandi can get married, she go to College do what ever it is she wants to do in her life she can still see and talk to her famliy so maybe if Brandi's family moves on and stops trying to blame what Brandi DID DO on Daniel then maybe it would make it that much easier on Shelia and her family to move on 

Maybe it would be helpful to think that, in spite of any foul-ups and confusion, by Divine grace, the judge got it right - less than murder, more than an accident, and sentenced accordingly. 

If all involved could think of it in that light, and choose to forgive Brandi, then maybe everyone could receive some inner peace. 

(See also my comment on Dan Snyder and Dany Heatley.) 

Has anyone heard of Dan Snyder and Dany Heatley? 

On the night of Monday September 29, 2003, following an autograph session with fans at Philips Arena in downtown Atlanta, teammates Dany Heatley and Dan Snyder drove off in Heatley’s 2002 black Ferrari. On the way to Heatley’s home in suburban Atlanta, where Snyder was staying until he found a place of his own, they stopped off for dinner at a restaurant with teammate Ilya Kovalchuk. After dinner, Heatley and Snyder said goodbye to Kovalchuk and continued home.  Heatley was said to be driving his Ferrari at 80 miles an hour when lost control of his car and swerved into the oncoming lane before crashing into a brick pillar.  Snyder was thrown about 30 feet from the car in the middle of the road where he lay unconscious in a coma.  Snyder died just eight days later in the hospital.  After Snyder’s death, Heatley was charged with first-degree vehicular homicide, which could have carried a prison sentence from 2 to 15 years in Georgia if convicted.  (From allsports.com, Snyder's Forgive Heatley, February 20, 2004, by Brad Evans.) 

Dany Heatley did not go to jail because Dan Snyder's family (influenced by Christian Mennonite beliefs) chose to forgive him and asked the judge not to sentence him to jail.  It actually took some intervention by the Snyder family and people involved in what's called "Restorative Justice" to keep him from going to jail as the judge at first thought he had no choice. 

Dan Heatley is now playing for the NHL Ottawa Senators hockey team.  The Snyder and Heatley families founded the Dan Snyder Neurotrauma Fund at  Atlanta's Emory University. 

I'm not saying that Brandi should not do jail time.  I actually think the judge got it right.  But these families have shown that forgiveness can bring life after death and restorative justice offers many possibilites.