The woman involved in a two-car accident that lead to an Ohio University graduate student's death pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated vehicular homicide.
April R. Hankinson, 27, of Athens, was sentenced to four years in prison, an eight-year drivers license suspension and must pay $15,465 in restitution to Singh's family. The state would not oppose judicial release after one year, said Robert Driscoll, Athens County assistant prosecutor. -
said Judge Michael Ward.
Hankinson's lawyer, Todd Grace, said the plea charges accurately dealt with facts presented in the case and the loss of the student.
Hankinson expressed remorse for her actions in a statement before the court. A mother herself, Hankinson said through tears that the grief she felt could never compare to that felt by Singh's family.
I don't know if it will ever end for me she said.- Todd Grace. Hankinson pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide
a third-degree felony for which she received a four-year prison sentence.,Hankinson sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide,",",","
25344,2008-07-10 00:00:00,Post Editorial: In black and white,",After a Post records request last August
several high-ranking Ohio University officials began talking via e-mail about how they were going to respond.
The consensus was they should fight releasing records from an anonymous tip-line meant to collect instances of fraud within the university. But after meeting with the Ohio Attorney General's office the records were released. Their conversation then turned to the wastefulness of broad
far-reaching public records requests.
The president of the OU Board of Trustees
C. Daniel DeLawder
remarked that he was sickened by the waste and unproductive time spent in the name of open records and freedom of the press.
Ironically
the public only learned the candid thoughts of DeLawder and others after a records request recently disclosed all of those e-mails.
That's the thing about public records. They provide a window into how public institutions operate without the filtering process of communications departments and public relations representatives.
And they stand as one of the public's greatest weapons for accountability.
Those broad requests are needed to see how a university's budget is being spent and if it's being wasted. They're needed to see if a city's new policy has cost more money than it was supposed to save. They're needed to find truth ' printed right there in black and white.
Public records laws were not written for the satisfaction of any public bureaucracy. They exist to ensure those bureaucracies run to the satisfaction of the public. Complaining of any inconvenience they create is akin to railing against the doctrine of 'innocent until proven guilty.'
A prosecutor must meet a higher burden of proof to ensure no innocent man is put in jail. A public university spending millions of dollars in taxes a year should have to work to meet a burden of its own. Theirs is collecting information and making copies ' sometimes lots of them.
It's transparency at the highest level.
And
once again
public records have delivered that transparency
