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"Defense invokes 'Crash,' blaming chance encounter for man's death."

You have to read through a half page of sympathetic verbiage before you get to the description of the actual crime:

A passenger in a nearby vehicle said [David] Jassy's SUV rolled so far into the crosswalk that it almost struck [John] Osnes. The pedestrian reacted by bringing his hands down on the hood of the SUV and shouting something, witnesses said.

Jassy immediately got out of the SUV and punched Osnes, witnesses testified. The blow knocked Osnes off balance and as he stooped -- either to regain his footing or to pick up his glasses -- Jassy kicked him in the face, the witnesses said.

"Like somebody punting a football," motorist Rinn testified. "He stepped into it."

The kick from the 6-foot, 200-pound Jassy lifted Osnes, who was 6-foot-3 and weighed about 160 pounds, off his feet, said R.J. Young, an off-duty Anaheim police officer who was in a car stopped at the intersection.

Another witness told police that Jassy shouted, "Stupid, why did you touch my car?"

Young said he thought he had witnessed "a possible homicide if not a felony assault" and ran toward Jassy, who was getting back into his SUV. The officer said he grabbed at the passenger door and slammed his badge against the window, shouting, "Police officer! Stop!"

He said Jassy looked at him, then put the vehicle into drive and turned its wheels in the direction of Osnes' body. The officer testified that he was still holding on to the door when the SUV rolled over Osnes....

In court papers, [Jassy's] lawyer wrote that Osnes' death fit the thesis of the film "Crash" -- "that random interactions of diverse people in a city as frenetic as Los Angeles can lead to disastrous consequences." He said the case begged a series of "what ifs," starting with, "What would have happened if Mr. Jassy and Mr. Osnes had not arrived on the same corner at the same time?"

For the love of God, what bullshit! It's one thing for lawyers to be shameless, quite another to make an argument so insanely self-serving that everyone recoils in disgust.

The prosecutor, Sarika Kapoor, shot back: "The only 'what if' we are left with is: What if the defendant valued human life?"

Full post as published by Althouse on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).