A judge ordered a New Mexico man to carry a photo of the teen he killed when his truck crashed into her SUV on a Georgia highway as a condition of his probation.
The Georgia judge said Daniel Crane, 50, should carry around the picture as a daily reminder of the life he took when his truck caused a seven-car pileup that killed 18-year-old Summer Lee and injured seven others on Interstate 75 near Atlanta, the Associated Press reported.
Crane pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in addition to a charge of “following too closely” in connection with the collision that caused Lee’s death.
Crane’s tractor-trailer hit Lee’s SUV from behind and pushed it into five other cars while he was driving on Interstate 75 in Henry County. The crash killed Lee and injured seven other people.
Senior Judge Rusty Carlisle gave Crane a two-year sentence where he would serve 60 days behind bars and the remainder of his sentence on probation.
Carlisle added, however, that Crane carry around a photo of Lee as well as a statement her mother gave to the court during the hearing throughout his probation.
“I believe in my heart Summer would want me to forgive you, but please know the difference in forgiving and forgetting,” Kimberly Lee told the court. “I know through my faith I must forgive if I plan on seeing her again when my day comes, so I would like to say I forgive you.”
“I said to myself, ‘This fella needs also to be reminded of the fact that she forgave him and of the life that he took,'” Carlisle told the Associated Press. “It may stay folded in his pocket and he may never look at it, but if he knows he’s got to pick it up every morning and put it in the pocket of whatever clothes he wears, then maybe that will make him think a little bit about what happened.”
Fox News reports that if Crane violates these added conditions, he could be sent back to jail.
Kimberly Lee told the Henry Daily Herald that she was satisfied with the judge’s sentence and Crane’s guilty plea, but was hoping Crane would apologize for what he did in court.
“In court, he never apologized, not even for the wreck, but to never apologize for the life that was taken — that’s what we had a problem with,” she said. “To not show any remorse is what has torn us apart.”
Carlisle, who is a retired senior judge in Cobb County, was filling in for a colleague who was originally responsible for the case but was absent from court due to a death in the family.
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