The mom of a 14-year-old boy who died in 2012 after being struck by a dust bike driver close to a Plymouth cranberry lavatory is continuous to battle for justice on the State House.
Jill Ward on Tuesday made her case to state lawmakers, once more, that drivers of snow or leisure automobiles who injure or kill another person ought to face stiffer penalties. Her testimony got here a day after the eleventh anniversary of when her son James was buried.
“I have spoken before, written letters and continue to be let down by the Commonwealth time after time,” Ward instructed the Joint Committee on the Judiciary.
A proposed regulation, dubbed ‘The James Ward Act,’ seeks to extend the penalty of a hit-and-run with a leisure car that causes bodily damage from a nice between $500 and $1,000 to a jail sentence of 1 12 months, a nice between $500 and $1,000, or each.
It additionally units penalties for a hit-and-run that leads to dying of one other particular person with a jail sentence of not more than two-and-a-half years, a nice of not more than $5,000, or each.
Ward is hoping ahead of later the invoice turns regulation in any case these years watching it achieve little to no traction on Beacon Hill. Last 12 months, the House accepted it, but it surely didn’t get consideration from the Senate.
“My condolences,” state Rep. Colleen Garry, D-Dracut, instructed Ward. “It must be very hard testifying so close to the anniversary. Thank you for filing this bill.”
James Ward had been filth biking on a path round a Plymouth cranberry lavatory close to the Carver line the afternoon of Dec. 9, 2012, along with his father Jimmy and youthful brother Jacob, when one other filth biker crashed into him.
James died, simply days earlier than celebrating his fifteenth birthday, from lacerations of the center, aorta and liver because of blunt power trauma, his mom mentioned, He would have turned 26 final Saturday, she added.
Her husband, she mentioned, instructed police he requested the suspect Christopher Kelly, 44, of Randolph, to go to the top of the highway to attend for the ambulance, however Kelly by no means returned, driving away with out figuring out himself.
Jill Ward additionally contended that Kelly, when confronted by State Police, denied being concerned within the crash.
A decide in June 2014 acquitted Kelly on a cost of negligent off-road driving leading to dying, a felony that carried a possible jail sentence of two.5 years, the Old Colony Memorial reported on the time.
Instead, the decide discovered Kelly responsible of leaving the scene of a crash, a misdemeanor. He was ordered to finish 40 hours of neighborhood service and had his license revoked.
Prosecutors alleged that Kelly was touring within the flawed lane when he crashed into James, the Old Colony Memorial reported. The protection, in the meantime, mentioned Kelly was driving on the suitable aspect of the highway and “the collision was an unavoidable accident, given the poor sight lines on the bend where the two bikers crashed,” in response to the paper.
“Mr. Kelly was found guilty … for the charges of a misdemeanor, guilty leaving the scene of bodily injury, and this was not the case,” Jill Ward mentioned Tuesday. “Exactly 11 years yesterday, I buried my son. … It was not bodily injury. This bill needs to become law.”
State Rep. Kathy LaNatra, D-Kingston, has refiled the invoice the previous couple of classes. In a Facebook put up in November 2022, when the House despatched it to the Senate, she mentioned she has “had the privilege of getting to know James’ parents.”
“As a parent, I can’t imagine their loss,” LaNatra wrote, “and it is my sincere hope that no family will have to lose a child while the other party only receives mild charges after leaving the scene of the accident.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”