08-22-2014, 11:05 AM
(08-21-2014, 06:27 PM)Duchess Wrote: How does everyone appear to immediately know the driver was drunk? Was it only the end result that played a role in the shooting? It seems like it would have to be.
I don't know if or how whoever murdered Jose Banda knew that he was drunk when they killed him.
He could have reeked of booze being at twice the legal limit, he could have been slurring or otherwise obviously inebriated when he was approached at the scene, he could have admitted that he was wasted... Or, just as likely to me, it wasn't known that Banda was drunk at the time, and he was killed because he hit those kids and caused their deaths, period.
For me, it doesn't matter if the killer knew that Banda was drunk or not. It's the same murder either way. But, for much of the public, the fact that Banda was drunk and the Barajas' lost their children horrifically gives the killer a free pass on the murder, especially if the killer is David Barajas.
If Banda -- a 20-year-old new father with a close-knit family -- had been sober when he was murdered for hitting a family -- a family who was stopped in the middle of a dark little-traveled road late at night with two of their children outside of the car --the climate surrounding this case would be very different, IMO.
Whether his intoxication had anything to do with hitting the Barajas' can never be known. But, he was in fact drunk and that is something that will be pounded on by the defense because it works so heavily in their favor, even though it shouldn't matter legally.
Whether or not Banda's drunkenness was known to the killer at the time will only be known to the rest of us if someone confesses and provides details to back up their contention if they claim his drunkenness was what motivated them to kill Banda.
There are a heck of a lot of unknowns in this case.