Why isn't Tony Stewart in jail?
Dr. H
Senior Member
http://deadspin.com/reports-tony-stewart-ran-over-opposing-driver-during-1618893708
Tyler Graves, a sprint-car racer and friend of Ward's, told Sporting News in a phone interview that he was sitting in the Turn 1 grandstands and saw everything that happened.
"Tony pinched him into the frontstretch wall, a racing thing," Graves said. "The right rear tire went down, he spun on the exit of (Turn) 2. They threw the caution and everything was toned down. Kevin got out of his car. He was throwing his arms up all over the place at Tony for most of the corner.
"I know Tony could see him. I know how you can see out of these cars. When Tony got close to him, he hit the throttle. When you hit a throttle on a sprint car, the car sets sideways. It set sideways, the right rear tire hit Kevin, Kevin was sucked underneath and was stuck under it for a second or two and then it threw him about 50 yards."
Comments
Educate me. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, and I am no lawyer or racing expert, but from my view, he killed someone.
BEST
How is this an accident ? The guys was on the track waving his arms about for a good 5-10 seconds , you telling me Stewart could not see him ?
Probably Tony just wanted to give him a little scare and " missed "
Jail all the way.
Exactly. This isn't like any one of us hitting a pedestrian in the street, Stewart is a professional race car driver. Also, I don't follow the sport, but apparently Stewart is known for having a bad temper fwiw.
But again, I'm not a practicing attorney and my areas of focus in law school were quantitative law, legal engineering, and estate planning. So take it FWIW.
Ontario County (N.Y.) Sheriff Phil Povero said earlier that Tony Stewart is not being investigated for criminal wrongdoing in Saturday nights accident that killed Kevin Ward Jr.
"Again, I want to please emphasize and make it clear that at this very moment there are no facts in hand that would substantiate or support a criminal charge or indicate criminal intent on the part of any individual," said Povero.
IMO Canandaigua prosecutors would be a 20-1 dog versus any Stewart legal team.
How is this even an issue that Stewart could possibly have any legal action against him ?
PLUS aren't drivers looking to avoid cars and collisions not pedestrians walking on the track ?
First, I'm not putting any effort into getting the evidence and law on this so I'm certainly not implying that there is a strong case here. I'm simply stating that it is provable given the right evidence.
However, as far as a release of liability form: You can put a million pages in that form, but it can't waive liability for a crime committed against you that is unreasonably foreseeable to occur during the course of whatever business practice that you are performing. A driver intentionally aiming his car at another driver who has evacuated his vehicle and walking on the track in order to scare him or hit him is certainly not an action reasonable expected to occur during a race.
To give you a more simple example to explain the concept: Say you want to go parachuting BK. You go over, sign the waiver, and get on the plane. You and your instructor jump out and then he pulls the parachute and y'all are coasting to the ground. Your instructor then thinks it would be funny to scare you. He gets out his knife and jokes that he's going to cut the connect between you. (Let's imagine it's a one cord connection and not get too caught up into the details of this instructive analogy please, lol) His hand accidentally slips, cuts the cord, and you fall to your death. Did you sign a waiver and protect the company (and it's employees) from reasonably foreseeable accidents that can occur during the practice of parachuting? Sure. Can you waive them from liability for an egregiously unreasonable business practice/criminal action committed against you? Most certainly not.
****And again I must state that: I am not a practicing attorney and thus I am not intending to provide legal advice to anyone on this forum as I cannot legally do so.****
Tony Stewart will not serve one minute in jail.
I would not be surprised if he pays a little money to the family to prevent a civil trial, although I do not believe the family would ultimately prevail in a civil trial.
What I don't understand is why a guy of his expertise would wanna bully around these 3rd rate dirt track guys. Kinda like Negreanu playing 2-4 in Arizona Charlies.
Can you explain why you feel it was more Stewart's fault? The kid walked down in the middle of the track. The car before Stewart's actually almost hit him and had to swerve to avoid him. Seems like Stewart was a little higher on the track, but tough to tell from the amateur video.
I'm not saying Stewart wasn't partially at fault, I have no idea what's going on in his head as he is approaching the kid, but to say he is more at fault than the kid who got out of his car and started walking down to the middle of the track , to me doesn't make sense. Like I said, seemed like he was lucky that the car before Tony didn't clip him. He put himself in a bad situation.
It's how you get that specific type of race car to turn, the right rear tire is larger than the left rear tire.
In my opinion he probably was trying to scare/intimidate the guy and the accident happened. He didn't mean to hit the guy but he did mean to bully/scare him by kicking the ass end of the car up the track. Spray the guy with some dirt or just make a point not to mess with him.
Stewart's been coming to a local track by me almost every summer for years (Lebanon Valley). He was just here in July. I have friends that are a major sponsor for one of the best guys on the dirt modified series that have told me stories about Stewart. Plus I've seen his aggressive driving up close.
The guy is relentless and an ultimate competitor. He's also a big shot bully that loves racing whether it be a pinewood derby car or a Sunday afternoon NASCAR.
Is he culpable? Sure. Will he be charged? NO! If this fucking guy is one of the best drivers in the world he sure as heck wouldn't hit another human being as he's driving 35-40 MPH in a car that he's driven his whole life. If he wanted to clearly avoid the guy he would have. He wanted to get as close as he could to Ward and make a point in my opinion.
Just my 2 cents.
I said perhaps. I get the argument that intent matters. It's one thing to hit the guy while trying to avoid him, and it's another to hit the guy accidentally while only trying to scare him because he pisses you off. The guy standing in traffic is dumb, but it doesn't mean you have the right to scare him off the road by using a speeding car as your instrument. Will never know intent here obviously.
You can guess (at least somewhat) at Stewart's intent though because:
a). Tony was involved in the initial accident
b). Tony was the target of the guy's anger
c). Everybody else managed to miss him
However, I've seen a hundred guys walk out onto the track, and this was about the most reckless example that I can remember. He wasn't just walking, he was walking into the middle of the track and looked as though he was actually trying to stop his car. Compound that mistake by doing it at the end of a turn on a short dirt track where you don't have the control that you'd have on a paved straightaway. It was foolish.
It's hard to see when the caution came out. It looked like those other cars had some pace to them still.
In the end, I think it's likely Stewart was trying to scare the kid. But, as I thought about it, I don't think it will be that difficult for Stewart to contend he didn't see him until it was too late and his attempt to swerve was unsuccessful given the area of the track where the kid was walking - this is why I'm not even certain at this point that a civil case would be successful.
It still pisses me off why this multi-millionaire wants to bully these young kids at lower level small tracks.
I think Ebe nailed it, I agree with this summary. As Ebe said, I think Stewart tried to scare/intimidate Ward and got closer to him than he wanted to. Here's the thing, if, and it's a big if, but if Stewart did indeed try to get close to Ward like most people think, then how does he live with himself? I mean he knows he intentionally tried to get close to him and got a little to close and killed him. Assuming Stewart has a conscience, I don't know how he just goes on with his life. Now, if this truly was an accident and Stewart honestly had no bad intention at all, then as horrible as it is to kill someone, at least Stewart would know he's innocent and it was 100% accidental, but if he knew exactly what he was doing, and it resulted in this guy's death, then I don't know how Stewart could live with himself knowing what happened, I know I couldn't, this would haunt me the rest of my life.
"From what I saw, Tony did everything in his power to turn down away from Kevin to avoid him," said sprint car driver Cory Sparks.
Sparks was just a few cars behind Stewart during Saturday's race. He said videos that have been posted online do not give an accurate picture of what happened.
"People say that they heard the engine rev up and he gassed it. In a sprint car, the only way to steer is you steer with the rear wheels as much as you do the steering wheel. In my opinion, what he did was he gassed it to turn down away from him," said Sparks.
Sparks also said drivers are very limited with the amount they can see out of the right side of the car.
"Kevin was wearing all-black. A black fire suit, a black helmet, which in normal situations isn't a big deal, they are to go with the colors of your car. It was tragic accident and a mistake was made," said Sparks.