Dr. Thompson road rage incident/sentencing(merged)

I wish for bad things on the Dr. dude, and I really hope that JUSTICE prevails and is SERVED!

 

From here, via Google:


http://tinyurl.com/bikinginla

 

Ugh, his testimony is sickening.
"Thompson went on to relate briefly the story of his childhood friend Bobby, who was run over a car, from behind, when Thompson was 14. Thompson was visibly shaken as he related the story and appeared near tears."
He takes special care not to run over cyclists from behind and instead attacks from the front.

http://www.velonews.com/article/99655

 

I agree, this testimony was pathetic. He is basically calling everyone liars, the cop, the injured riders, the three previous riders too. I can just picture him sitting there trying to look the part of the victim.

If he sped up and got around them and then came to a controlled stop, then there is no way that these guys wouldhave hit him. I have haven't ridden road a lot, but I do know that A) you don't just throw yourself into a car for no reason; b) You want to avoid sudden stops at speed by all means.

I find it funny how through out the trial his attorney has been really aggressive in questioning the other witnesses, but it appears that when he was questioning Thompson that he words were not as harsh and aggressive.

 

If several people, over a span of time, yelled, "eff you, a--hole" at me, I believe that I would have to do some real soul searching.

I think that the defense attorney is actually helping the prosecutor. If I was the guy's lawyer, I think that I would argue that the doctor was trying to fix a problem when he said "single file" and that the bikers' shockingly rude physical and verbal response temporarily enraged the doctor, causing him to stop the car without thinking about the consequences. That would explain his "teach them a lesson" comment and be in keeping with his rebuffed offer to examine the injured rider, the fact that he made the 911 call etc. The jurors could possibly see themselves in such a possition. Instead, the defense attorney is more or less presenting his client as an unremorseful liar and cry baby. How does that win him any points?

 

Any more updates on the case? I'm assuming the jury might be deliberating by now. I hope to read the word "GUILTY" soon.

 

Didn't anyone think to check the "black box" of the good doctor's car to see what his speed and driving style was at the time of the incident?

It's a common practice ion most injury cases.

 

Closing arguments...

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• Prosecution rest in LA road rage case. Defense will call witnesses Monday.
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• Michael Barry moves to Team Sky, where he will be one of the veteran riders.

LA road-rage trial closing arguments wrap up

By Patrick Brady
Published: Oct. 30, 2009

Road Rage Trial: Thompson's rear window after the July 4 incident.
Photo: Chris Roberts


Prosecutors and defense attorneys made closing arguments Thursday in Los Angeles, in the trial of a former emergency room doctor accused of injuring two cyclists when he stopped his car suddenly in front of them.
Dr. Christopher Thomas Thompson's attorney said it was all an accident. "This was not an attempt to hurt anyone."
Deputy District Attorney Mary Stone said Thompson's actions "crossed a line you cannot cross."
Thompson is accused of assault with a deadly weapon, reckless driving causing specified bodily injury, battery with serious bodily injury and mayhem. The most serious charges stem from a July 4, 2008, incident on the road where Thompson lives. Other charges relate to a similar incident on the same road that did not result in injuries.
Stone said that, in the earlier incident, Thompson had three options when he caught up to cyclists Patrick Watson and Josh Crosby as they descended Mandeville Canyon Road. He could have driven behind the two cyclists at 30 mph (the speed limit and the cyclists' speed according to GPS data) or he could have passed them and kept driving. Instead, he passed them and then stopped, later saying that he wanted to take a picture, a claim Stone called “patently ridiculous.”
In that incident, Watson and Crosby said they narrowly avoiding hitting the rear of Thompson's Infiniti sedan when he stopped.
Stone played Thompson’s 911 call, from after the July 4 incident, once again for the jurors. Jurors heard Thompson tell the operator, “They said **** you; I slammed on my brakes.”
On the tape the operator asked Thompson if the injuries were serious, and he said, “They’ll tell you they are, but they’re not.”
“What a callous statement is that?” Stone asked. “He had no right to make that statement."

Stone reminded the jury how the first police officer to arrive testified that Thompson told him: “I wanted to teach (the cyclists) a lesson,” and “I’m tired of them.”
Those words did not fit with the profile of a man who, as an MD, “knows the fragility of the human body,” Stone told the jury.
Defense closing

Defense attorney Peter Swarth began by putting a sheet of paper on an overhead projector. It had a single word, “accident.”
“This was an accident that could happen to anyone,” he said.
Swarth portrayed the cyclists as at fault; they “endangered (Thompson) by not allowing him to pass,” he said.
“If you have even a feather of doubt, then you have reasonable doubt and you must acquit,” Thompson said.
In regard to the Fourth of July incident, Swarth asked the jury, “Where is the evidence of anger? The injury doesn’t make this criminal.”
He accused Ron Peterson and Christian Stoehr, the riders in the July 4 incident, of being dishonest and said of Stoehr, “He looked back at his friend Ron Peterson; he lost his balance and fell.”
Of Peterson (a cycling coach) he said, “This teacher, teaching his student about the dangers of the road, teaches him about anger.”
He referenced Stone’s statements about the permanence of Peterson and Stoehr’s injuries and then asked the jury, “Where does Dr. Thompson go to get his reputation back?
Next, he asked, “If you’re in a rage why are you going to get out of your car and call 911?”
Speaking of the 911 recording, Swarth said, “Did he choose the best words? No. This was not an attempt to hurt anyone. He wanted to get a photo.”
Swarth sought to convince the jury that Thompson was actively seeking to create a safer situation. “The universe is like that ... the thing you seek to avoid becomes the thing you can’t avoid.”
“The facts in this case don’t add up to a criminal act.”
The final word

In Stone’s rebuttal, she laid out an allegory of sorts, re-telling the three Mandeville Canyon incidents the prosecution presented during the trial.

Related articles:

Oct. 30, 2009: Closing arguments
Oct. 29, 2009: Thompson cross-examined
Oct. 28, 2009: Dr. Thompson takes the stand
Oct. 26, 2009: Prosecution rests
Oct. 22, 2009: 'I wanted to teach them a lesson'
Oct. 20, 2009: Defense suggests cyclists were looking for a fight
Oct. 19, 2009: Road-rage trial begins
Oct. 12, 2009: California road-rage case heads for court
Dec. 24, 2008: Mionske: Mandeville incident inspires Cyclists Bill of Rights
Aug. 15, 2008: Mionske: Bikes v. cars
Aug. 8, 2008: Mionske: Where's the justice?
July 14, 2008: Mailbag: Readers sound off
July 13, 2008: Doctor charged
July 10, 2008: LA incident rallies cyclists

First, she goes to a Trader Joe’s. Goes to the aisle where they have granola she wants. Someone is in the way, preventing her from getting her granola, so she swings a bat at the person, but doesn't hit him. With that, Stone held up a baseball bat, swinging in an abrupt arc.
Weeks go by. She returns to the Trader Joe’s and again there’s someone in the way, someone preventing her from getting her granola. This time she swings the bat at them and they duck just out of the way.
A few more weeks go by and she’s back at Trader Joe’s. Someone, she said, “is in my aisle, blocking me from my granola. So I blast his nose with my bat.”
“But of course, I get arrested.”
Then, donning a white doctor’s coat, she said, “But I shroud myself in this because I want to deflect what I did.”
What's next?

The court is closed Friday. A jury verdict is expected early next week. If convicted of all charges, Thompson could spend up to five years in prison.

 

I so deeply hope this guy gets the maximum penalty and that he is never allowed to be considered anything near a doctor again...

 

Anyone attending this trial?

I would like to be there for the verdict if possible.

 

The problem here is that a lot of people (who are not cyclists) believe that just because the guy is a doctor and took the Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm," that he is incapable of acting out of malice. Thompson's lawyer is playing into that fallacy. The reality is that being a doctor does not guarantee that he won't be as much of a f**ktard as anyone else with rage issues and no medical degree. Hopefully the 12 people in the jury room will remember that.

 

I think it's very obvious even to the most simple of persons what the Dr's intent was simply by his own words.

But you never know with a jury. However, I would wager a good amount that the Dr. will get convicted.

I would be surprised if he gets any jail time. The victims don't come across as the money type in the sense of the Dr. won't be able to buy his way out or buy them off.

Not that he would even try, given that he really thinks he innocent of wrongdoing.

I do get the feeling he could be the one they make an example of when it comes to road rage and how acceptable it seems to have become. They now have a deserving poster boy.

If he is somehow found not guilty, it is open season on bicyclists in SoCal. Could really suck to be a roadie then.

Anyways. The Dr.'s lawyer has put up a terrible defense. If I was the Dr. I would want my money back already.

 

I checked out the doctor's lawyer and he went to some really good schools but I agree. The defense seemed weak on paper. Maybe he was limited by his client's wishes. It happens sometimes.

If the doctor gets off can we riot?

 

Any new updates? I know that the case went to the jury last week.

 

Here's a great summary of the closing arguments. If the jury doesn't find the doctor guilty, then there is no justice. BTW, while I'm here, please think twice you all, next time you try to get out of jury duty.

here it is:
http://bikinginla.wordpress.com/

 

I wonder if he blamed his friend for the accident and feels he needs to teach riders a lesson to help "save" them.

 

I think there are 4 charges being considered, or something like that, with assault with a deadly weapon being the most serious. In my experience jurors will sometimes go with the flow on the more serious charges, voting to acquit rather than draw out the deliberations. If a few people on that jury think the doc didn't intend to do any harm it could get him off on the assault, which would be a travesty IMO. I think some of the other charges like reckless driving resulting in injury are probably a slam-dunk. Any thoughts from those following this?

 

Here's the liklihood of conviction analysis from the Velo News reporter:

"My reporting for VeloNews on the trial of Dr. Christopher Thomas Thompson as a result of actions he took on Mandeville Canyon on July 4, 2008, has been as straight and without bias as I’ve been able to construct. I can’t say it is without bias at all, though I can’t point to a place in the work where I editorialized or slanted information. However, I have left out information for the simple reason that I cannot possibly include every detail that transpires during five hours or so of testimony. I’ve done my best to include the high points and low points for both the prosecution and the defense in my effort to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the respective cases.
As I mentioned, I’ve got an obvious bias in covering this case that you don’t need me to explain: I’m a cyclist. However, I have a second bias in this case, and one that could potentially make my coverage more suspect: Ron Peterson and Christian Stoehr are friends of mine. I’ve ridden thousands of miles with Ron and probably more than a thousand miles with Christian as well. When I was publishing Asphalt, Ron was one of my editors and he penned a bike review and coaching column for each issue.
I’ve left my personal opinions out of the coverage; what I think, has no place in that reporting. Also, I think if I were to skew the coverage, it would undermine our understanding of how serious this situation is.
I may have left my personal opinions out of my coverage; however, the number one question I get in e-mail and on the road is how I think the case is going. I’m asked a dozen (or more) times a day: ‘Will Thompson go down?’
I could be dead wrong in my judgment, but I’m fairly well informed; I’ve attended every hour of every day of the trial and have been the only cyclist to attend the trial in its entirety; someone needed to.
So here’s how I see things: The jury has had less than two hours to deliberate. It seems unlikely they will return a quick verdict. They are considering seven charges—six felonies and one misdemeanor. A responsible jury will consider each of the felony charges for some time.
I’ve read about plenty of cases that seemed like slam dunks only to have a jury convict for a misdemeanor and hang or acquit on a felony as a way to dodge what seemed too harsh a punishment for the defendant. Such an outcome in this case wouldn’t surprise me were it not for an important detail—the distribution of the charges.
Each of the six felonies pertains to Thompson’s actions on July 4, 2008, the actions that led to the injuries of Ron Peterson and Christian Stoehr. Should the jury become queasy about convicting a doctor of felonies, there are no misdemeanors related to that incident to hang around his neck as a slap on the wrist. The only misdemeanor in this case is the reckless driving charge that relates to the incident on March 11, 2008, with Patrick Watson and Josh Crosby.
The jury has three options, naturally. They could convict him, acquit him or hang. And while we might like the meaning of that last option to involve a rope, it is simply our preferred term for a jury’s inability to decide.
But the jury ought to be able to decide this man’s fate. Why? Well, my personal take is that Deputy District Attorney Mary Stone did what was necessary to prove Thompson’s guilt, pure and simple. While I do think Peter Swarth has been good counsel and maybe even effective counsel, even after I do my personal best to set aside my personal bias, I think Thompson is guilty based on the case Stone presented.
Ultimately, Thompson’s guilt comes down to the statements he made in his 911 call and to Officer Rodriguez. Had Thompson not made three simple statements—“I slammed on my brakes.” “I wanted to teach them a lesson.” And, “I’m tired of them.”—he’d probably be looking at a good chance of acquittal.
He did deny that he made the statements about teaching the cyclists a lesson and being tired of them. But because he didn’t deny the statements immediately preceding and following those two statements and then claiming he didn’t mean “slammed” when he said “slammed,” made him look like a liar. Or better yet, a perjurer.
While I was personally offended at some of Swarth’s tactics, I thought his defense was essentially to be expected, if not downright predicatable. I’ll admit feeling absolute outrage when Thompson said, “Bicycles are inherently dangerous because of their instability and unpredictability.”
Swarth occupied some three hours with testimony from a forensic psychologist whose entire testimony was meant to discredit the memory of Patrick Early, the first cyclist to have an altercation with Thompson. Early’s testimony was meant to go to Thompson’s mindset, and therefore his motivation, but even if the defense discredited Early—and I’m not saying they did—there was still Watson and Crosby’s incident to consider.
Still, Swarth couldn’t undo the damage Thompson had done to his own case before hiring counsel. I’ve heard that some doctors develop colossal egos that manifest through incredible arrogance. If ego and arrogance clouded his judgment enough to allow him to think his actions would go unpunished, one wonders what other sociopathic tendencies he exhibits.
So what’s it going to be?
Acquittal seems unlikely. Despite the smokescreens that Swarth blew over the case, the evidence against Thompson seems too strong to find him not guilty.
The assault with a deadly weapon charge is, shall we say, the gateway charge. This is the first charge from the July 4, 2008, incident that jurors must consider. Logically, it seems to me that if they find Thompson guilty beyond a reasonable doubt with regard to even one charge of assault with a deadly weapon, the other five charges—which includes a charge of mayhem as a result of the damage done to Peterson’s nose and carries a possible sentence of eight years—are essentially a given. If you are willing to think that Thompson used his car to threaten or intimidate Peterson and Stoehr at all, then it is virtually impossible to believe the other crimes he is charged with didn’t also take
Here’s the problem: Juror bias. It is easy for cyclists to underestimate the hostility that some people feel for cyclists. All it takes is for one person out of twelve to decide that cyclists aren’t real people or that Peterson and Stoehr had it coming or any other illogical rationalization that could undermine the proper application of justice.
We probably won’t see a verdict on Monday, though if we were to see a quick judgment, it might be good news to cyclists everywhere. It seem more likely, however, that a verdict could take days to return.
Honestly, I think there’s a 50 percent chance we’ll get a hung jury. I suppose I have to grant a one percent chance of an acquittal; it seems a remote possibility, but there is that chance. That’s leaves a 49 percent chance of conviction. I stand by my assertion: If he’s convicted of one felony count, I think he’ll be convicted on all counts. The misdemeanor in the Waton/Crosby incident hardly matters.
There is yet another wrinkle to report in this case. On Thursday, the day the case was given to the jury, Peterson sued Thompson in federal court for negligence and battery, citing permanent injuries arising from the incident. Even if Thompson gets a hung jury, or the unthinkable—an acquittal, his woes are far from over"

 

Thanks for the update Sweetpea! Rons a friend and my old coach. I knew he was going to sue and one way or another, the Dr. is going down!!

 

Found guilty on all charges!
http://velonews.com/article/99800/dr-thompson-guilty-in-la-road-rage-trial