Sometimes No One's to Blame

To say we Americans live in a litigious society is cliché. We look to the legal system to correct every perceived injustice because we don’t want to believe that we live in a world where terrible things sometimes happen for no good reason.

But in some cases, there is no one to blame. A series of decisions, poor only in retrospect, can unintentionally lead to a bad outcome.

This scenario is being played out in my community in Colorado. Last January, two high school students, Tyler Carron and Nikko Landeros, who wrestled for Berthoud High School, went to a dance. While they were changing a flat tire on a snowpacked county road, another high school student accidentally hit their SUV with hers. Both young men lost both their legs below the knee.

Now Michelle Berra, the driver of the SUV that hit them, is set to go on trial in October for two counts of careless driving resulting in bodily injury. If convicted, she could go to jail for as long as eighteen months, and pay a maximum fine of $5,000.

In response to the upcoming trial, Ms. Berra’s attorney has mounted a defense some have found to be controversial. When I first heard the defense present evidence that Mr. Carron and Mr. Landeros might have been partially responsible for the crash, my first reaction was to groan, “Oh, no, not another blame-the-victims defense.” Briefs filed by Michelle Berra’s legal team point to evidence that the two young men had been drinking that night. It might have impaired their judgment enough that they decided to change the flat tire on a county road narrowed by snow banks from three December snowstorms, after they had passed by half a dozen driveways where they could have more safely done their work.

When Mr. Carron and Mr. Landeros opened the back of Carron’s Isuzu to retrieve tools, they didn’t know that the door blocked one of the taillights, or that Landeros was blocking the other taillight as he stood by to help his friend. That made it all but impossible for Ms. Berra, or any other driver that on the road at 11:30 p.m., to see what was in the road in front of her.

Before I launch into my argument for why Ms. Berra should not be convicted, I want to make several things clear.

One, what happened to Tyler Carron and Nikko Landeros in January was horrible. They could not have predicted that things would go so wrong that night, and they never did anything to deserve to suffer as they have. That night was the beginning of a long nightmare for them. And, for very different reasons, for Ms. Berra as well. These three young people and the three other teens who were in Mr. Carron’s SUV that night experienced and saw things that night that I pray I never witness.

Two, I am not related to any of the families involved in this case, and I have never met any of them.

Three, I am a huge proponent of personal responsibility. It is not my intention to make excuses for anyone involved in this situation. I propose that everyone involved is suffering so much that they have already assumed more than their fair share of responsibility.

Four, I am not an attorney. I have a hard time reading and understanding the language in the deed to my house, but I like to think that I have a decent grasp on the difference between right and wrong.

It’s important to remember what the nature of an accident is—a misfortune that occurs unintentionally and may result in injury or loss. That understanding has been lost in the desire to assign blame and make sure someone is held responsible for this disaster—perhaps even to ensure that Ms. Berra’s loss is more in proportion to what Mr. Carron and Mr. Landeros lost that night.

At first glance, the allegations Ms. Berra’s attorney has raised seem tasteless in light of all that the two young men have lost. But I believe for the sake of fairness, questions of Mr. Carron’s and Mr. Landeros’ alleged negligence must be answered in court. What other defense, after all, does Ms. Berra have? “Please, Your Honor, it was all just a horrible accident”? That would essentially be throwing herself on the mercy of the court, something only the guilty do. That would not serve the cause of justice, which is based on discovering the truth of what happened.

If I had any faith that holding Ms. Berra responsible would end the suffering for these two young men and their families, then I would support it. Yet nothing, not even a guilty verdict, changes the fact that these two young men will live the rest of their lives without the legs they were born with. That’s not fair.

But it’s also not fair that Michelle Berra may be held solely responsible for the accident. Apparently living with the guilt she feels isn’t enough for prosecutor Larry Abrahamson. He no doubt believes he is delivering justice to the boys, their families and the community. I’m here to remind him that two wrongs never make a right.

Story ID:	2647
Written by:	Diana Shellenberger (bio, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Musings, Essays and Such
Location:	Berthoud Colorado USA
Year:	2007