Teenager Ananya Rao was not driving when she was badly injured and her friend Sophia Lekiachvili was killed in a car crash. A third friend, Hannah Hackmeyer, was behind the wheel. But while Hannah isn’t going to prison, Rao’s parents, who hosted parties where underage drinking occurred, might be incarcerated for Sophia’s death. Thomas Lake tells a complicated story about culpability in the Atlanta suburbs:
At a recent pretrial hearing, prosecutor Thomas Williams likened the Raos to negligent referees.
“Imagine a basketball game where one player fouls another,” he said. “A hard foul. And the referee sees the foul, but doesn’t do anything about it. That trains the basketball player, ‘Oh, the referee is gonna have a loose whistle. He’s not gonna blow his whistle. I can get away with just a little bit more.’ And the next foul’s a little bit harder. And the next foul after that is a little bit harder. But no whistles ever come.”
Hannah and her friends learned from this pattern of experiences, Williams said: It trained them to believe they could get away with drinking and driving.
More stories about the law
The Babies Kept in a Mysterious Los Angeles Mansion
“A wealthy couple obtained dozens of children through surrogates. Did they want a family, or something else?”
‘Anna, Lindsey Halligan Here.’
“My Signal exchange with the interim U.S. attorney about the Letitia James grand jury.”
Crimes of the Century
“How Israel, with the help of the U.S., broke not only Gaza but the foundations of humanitarian law.”
