Two people were removed from court for speaking and laughing during sentencing for a woman who caused a fatal accident while drunk driving (video below).
According to Mad World News, Amanda Kosal has been sentenced to 3 to 15 years in prison after she admitted to driving drunk when she struck an SUV head-on in Redford Township, Michigan, killing 31-year-old Jerome Zirker and severely injuring his fiancee, 31-year-old Brittany Johnson.
Kosal pleaded guilty to operating under the influence causing death.
During Kosal’s hearing, Judge Qiana Lillard was forced to remove two people from the courtroom for laughing and speaking while Kosal was sentenced:
It’s time for him to go. And I don’t know who he is, but whoever can sit here at a tragic moment like this and laugh and smile when somebody has lost a family member … in the entire time that Mr. Zirker’s sister was speaking, that clown, and that’s what I am going to call him, a clown, was sitting there smiling and laughing. And you can go, too. Because if you don’t know how to act, you can go to jail. So leave. Anybody that can sit there and laugh and smirk — anybody else wanna go? You can go, too. This is a court of law. And these are very serious matters. I understand that you all are very upset because your loved one is going to prison but guess what, she’s going to prison for the choices that she made. These people are here grieving, saddened because a senseless act took away their loved one and you’re sitting here acting like it’s a joke?
According to WDIV, a woman removed from the courtroom was arrested for criminal contempt.
“Your disruptive and disrespectful behavior disrupted today’s proceedings and you, ma’am, are going to the Wayne County Jail for 93 days,” Lillard told the woman.
WDIV reports that Johnson is a single mother-of-five following the crash caused by Kosal. She said that she had just been picked up by Zirker after a 12-hour-long shift as a care worker at a group home before Kosal crashed into their vehicle.
The couple’s children were not in the car at the time.
“Luckily, they were at grandma’s house or it would have been all of us,” Johnson said.
Zirker’s mother, Rathel Fizer, said that she does not want Kosal to go to jail. Instead, she had another idea for the drunk driver.
“I want her to stay out and help support my grandchildren, because they don’t have a father to take care of them,” Fizer said. “If she goes to prison or jail, I’m taking care of her. I don’t want her to mail a check. I want her to hand-deliver it to them so she can see the faces that she destroyed.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEex8LVSe-4