But I keep coming back to something fundamental, something that gets lost sometimes in our legal system.
We have laws for a reason.
We have speed limits for a reason.
We have consequences for breaking those laws for a reason.
And the reason is simple.
To protect people, to keep our communities safe, to ensure that everyone can live without fear of someone’s reckless behavior destroying their lives.
You know what troubles me most about this case? It’s not even the speeding, as serious as that is.
It’s not even the reckless endangerment.
It is the attitude.
It is the arrogance.
It is the complete lack of understanding that her actions affect other people, real people with real families and real lives.
When I look at the evidence, when I read that police report, when I see those social media posts, and when I watch that doorbell footage, I see someone who has been taught, maybe not explicitly, but through experience, that consequences don’t apply to them, that they can do what they want, that their family name or their father’s money will always bail them out.
Well, not today, not in this courtroom, not on my watch.
I want to explain something about sentencing.
When a judge sentences someone, we aren’t trying to be cruel.
We aren’t trying to destroy lives.
