Minor Correction to USA Today column
Published 12/12/03
Filed under: Miscellaneous
Jim Harris wrote to me today to point out an error in my Dec. 12 USA Today column. (Or at least something that needed clarification, depending on how generous you want to be.)
I wrote:
Take Congressman Bill Janklow, just convicted of manslaughter for speeding through a stop sign and killing a motorcyclist. One of the witnesses against him was his car’s “black box.”
Mr. Harris noted that the black box was not a witness against Congressman Janklow. He writes:
The evidence from the Event Data Recorder (EDR or Black Box) in Mr. Janklow’s Cadillac was introduced by the defense, not the prosecution. The accident reconstructionist for the defense downloaded the limited data from the EDR and attempted to use this data to present an impact speed lower than that determined by the police accident reconstructionist.
In the end, the defense attempt failed.
I checked, and I was wrong — that’ll teach me to rely on a single source. It was in fact Janklow’s defense that tried to introduce his car’s black box, not the prosecution. So the box was a witness, just not a witness against him.
Sorry for the error! (Although it doesn’t detract from the story as a whole. Other people have had their car’s black box used against them in court.)
