Usually the accidents happen on the highway, on a residential street, or the like. They usually don't happen in the parking lot of the Superior Court in Santa Monica.
Yikes.
I can't tell from the opinion what the defendant was doing in the parking lot. Was he there for a hearing? Was he just parking there? Who knows. But what I do know is that he rammed through a control arm parking gate and, according to the car's black box, hit the victim at 53.4 miles per hour. To reiterate: He hit that speed in the parking lot.
Yeah. You're going to get convicted for that. Especially when you're under the influence of marijuana at the time and, once you're caught, a body cam shows you telling the officer: "I just want to smoke some weed."
Probably not the best thing to say.
Anyway, in the future, be careful in a courthouse parking lot. It might seem like a fairly safe place. But apparently there's no such thing.
