Martin Luther King Junior On Drunk Driving And Why Rhonda Renee Sutton Bryant Should Serve A Substantial Jail Sentence

Please share this on your Facebook and send the text copy/pasted in emails. We need a large grassroots response and effort to effect actual JUSTICE FOR JEREMY.

I admit that all I can do is extrapolate. Martin Luther King Junior would condemn Rhonda Renee Sutton Bryant’s actions on moral grounds and urge that punishment would best serve society and justice.

A little bit of background first.

In our front yard in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on the sunny Saturday mid-morning of November 10, 2012, Bryant high and drunk (BAC .07 and cocaine) came speeding down our residential street, in the wrong lane, smashed into my husband, Jeremy Bruns, pinning him between the back of his truck and the hood of her car for about an hour. She cut off his legs above the knees, broke both of his femurs, lopped off his right thumb and crushed his right hand and arm. He broke and dislocated his left arm because he pounded on her windshield to “STOP!” because she wasn’t stopping. He remained conscious in excruciating pain while I was forced to watch his blood pool on the road, held back by the police, while the medics said he was losing blood faster than they could give it to him, and seeing what looked like the last minutes of his life. It was horrific.

On Veteran’s Day weekend, my husband, a highly decorated active duty soldier with 21 years in the Army and nine deployments was permanently and catastrophically injured. He is constantly mistaken for a war victim.

Jeremy spent three months as an inpatient. We are still living at Walter Reed, 14 months later as outpatient, and Jeremy faces more rehabilitation and surgeries on top of the more than a dozen surgeries and procedures that he has already endured. His injuries are persistently painful for both of us in more ways than I wish to elaborate here.

There is a problem in North Carolina: the crime of drunk driving and the enforcement and acknowledgment of its seriousness is seriously lacking.

At the end of this essay I will share with you the stomach-turning suggestion of the judge and district attorney -- the “solution” that they think may be “fair” in this case.

Obviously I think otherwise. And so would MLK Jr.

In his Letter From Birmingham Jail, he said:

“I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.”

I am writing this essay because injustice is in Cumberland County, North Carolina and all over the United States.

“I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Victims of drunk drivers, a senseless and preventable crime, are tragically affected in all 50 states. Our actions impact one another. If we allow Bryant to get a pass and not hold the judge and DA up to the task, then more families will suffer the worst consequences of drunk drivers.

“My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.”

Bryant injured us through her crime -- our rights to life and safety. We have lost time and gained limitations (for the rest of our lives). Every state has drunk driving laws and sentencing guidelines to help ensure our protection, though some states clearly care more than others. Each of us is guaranteed equal protection of the laws. Bryant’s punishment or lack of punishment sends a message to criminals, citizens, and everybody else about our values and whether they can be exploited and condemned or celebrated and emulated.

“There are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws.”

Drinking and drugged driving is against the law, and everybody can agree that it is a just law. Everybody knows that driving while intoxicated is extremely dangerous behavior to oneself and to innocent bystanders. Bryant knew the law, yet she chose to break it, though I know not why a 47-year-old woman would be so stupid, careless, and reckless. Again. She had a DWI in New York in 1990. How many times has she driven intoxicated and not been caught? The consequences of her immoral choices should not only punish us, her victims, otherwise what is the point in having laws?

“A just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself.”

The revulsion against intoxicated driving is fundamentally universal across states, race, sex, creed, age, marital status, socioeconomic status, and religion.

“One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

If Bryant doesn’t serve time for her crime, then she is expressing the highest disrespect for the law. Our Constitution compels each citizen to take seriously the duty of promoting General Welfare through Justice to ensure Domestic Tranquility.

“Injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”

Does anybody care about what happened to Jeremy? You could be next. Innocently standing in your front yard and then suddenly out of nowhere WHAMMO your life changes or ends in an instant.

“Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.”

I may be criticized for using a few lines of MLK Jr’s powerful letter meant to help end the indignities of segregation for my own agenda of justice. I submit that perhaps he would be proud, that his words and ideals could be generalized, spun, and used to persuade action for injustice in other righteous causes.

“Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God’s will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion?”

Jeremy is the victim. Bryant has clear liability – she is responsible and should be held accountable.

“Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”

I will not be complacent in the face of injustice.

The judge and DA suggested that Bryant plead guilty and serve two months in jail along with 3 to 5 years of probation. Judge Ammons’ logic was that there is no treatment in jail. However, as a military dependent, she could have easily sought free treatment during these past 14 months through Tricare! How can she serve less time in jail than Jeremy spent in a hospital bed as an inpatient? She should serve the maximum time by state law for the crime she committed, and not probation for a future determent of a crime she may commit later – if it is enforced! It took me five months to get felony charges. One DA said that he had never heard of this statute that had been on the books for six years!

The sentencing guidelines in North Carolina, found here http://www.nccourts.org/Courts/CRS/Councils/spac/Documents/FelonyChart_12_01_11MaxChart.pdf say that if she is a Level I and Category F, then she should serve 10-20 months as a minimum sentence. The grid below the chart on that webpage seems to indicate if she is sentenced to 20 months minimum, then she could serve 36 months maximum. I am confused since the original offer was 13-25 months of active sentence. The felony charge is 20-141.4(a3) serious injury by vehicle. Bryant has a number of prior traffic violations, including failure to yield in Robeson County the week before she hit Jeremy that the DA did not have in her records and is waiting on the Robeson County court office to return her call. 

What do you think is fair in this case? Jeremy’s legs and thumb (and subsequently another finger) will never grow back. She will get out of jail eventually.

Should she serve 2 months in jail or 36 months?

Other states are much harsher with their penalties, which have shown to be the strongest deterrent of intoxicated driving. If consequences were worse, then people would think more about their actions.

We want to see her sentenced with the maximum jail time.

Going to jail would be good for her so she won’t kill someone. Everyone is very lucky that Jeremy has been the only one injured by Bryant.

What do you think?

Write a letter to the Cumberland County District Attorney and let him know what you think:

Billy West

Cumberland County Courthouse

Suite 427

117 Dick Street

Fayetteville North Carolina 28301

You may also write to Jeremy or I:

J Bruns

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

#50036

Bethesda, Maryland 20889-5600

Thank you for spending your precious time reading my essay.

Yours for justice and the crusade to end the scourge of intoxicated driving,

Jenny

Update January 21, 3:35 p.m. Bryant is a category F, and I have adjusted above the months of structured sentencing. We spoke to the DA and she is going to take another in-depth look at the case before making a decision. She said that she has no problem going to trial, but we must accept the risks. She is concerned that the .07 does not meet the threshold for the DWI portion of the felony serious injury. Cocaine makes the .07 irrelevant anyway, as any amount in Bryant's system meets the threshold for DWI in NC. In the 2010 last-filed case of NC v. Mumford, NCGS 20-141.4(a3) does not require a conviction of driving while impaired, but only a finding that the defendant was engaged in the conduct described. Mumford was found not guilty of 20-138.1 (misdemeanor DWI) and guilty under 20-141.4(a3) and they found that it was inconsistent but not mutually exclusive.  The DA said that she needs to contact the SBI to ensure there wasn't a flaw with the chemical analysis and their availability for trial, and also with the police because Bryant could walk on a technicality. The DA is aware that we are not comfortable with the plea offer of two months and 3-5 years probation. The DA also expressed the typical outcome in these cases aren't maximum punishments. The DA also said the decision to pursue Bryant and punish her is up to the state even though they take our wishes into consideration. She is unsure whether or not Bryant is currently driving!