What does justice look like?

If you want to get away with murder, use your car

Author

T K
February 17, 2026

I guess by now most of you know by now I’m a lawyer, and I started my career suing dishonest copper merchants no it wasn’t that long ago, I started as a public defender in an unnamed Calfiornia county. Being a public defender means you tend to favor the downtrodden, the little guy, and the victims of an overbearing state. Your clients are all accused criminals so that comes naturally! I’ve pretty much kept that attitude and tend to favor shorter sentences and mental health intervention over the punishing carcerality that was in vogue when I started out. But there’s this SF case that is challenging my lefty forgiveness. From the Chron (and thanks for the horrifying photo too, Chron):

S.F. driver accused of killing family of 4 in West Portal crash likely to avoid prison time

A woman who prosecutors said killed a family of four while speeding down a residential San Francisco street will likely face no jail time or community service mandates after pleading no contest to four felony counts of gross vehicular manslaughter.

Mary Fong Lau, 80, changed her plea from not guilty to no contest Friday afternoon and a San Francisco Superior Court judge indicated he was unlikely to impose prison time. Prosecutors said she crashed into a West Portal bus stop in March 2024, killing a mother, father and their two young children as they waited for transportation to the San Francisco Zoo. A no-contest plea indicates that while a criminal defendant does not admit guilt, they waive their right to a trial and allow the court to treat them as if they were guilty for the purposes of sentencing.

I don’t know who first said “If You Want to Get Away with Murder, Use Your Car,” but it’s sadly common, given the fact that drivers who kill people tend to get much lighter sentences than if they had shot them with a gun or even accidentally killed them with, say, explosives, even though a car can just as deadly in the wrong hands. Remember Amelie Le Moullac, riding her bike in SOMA when a truck turned into her and killed her? The driver wasn’t even cited.

It appears Ms. Lau was going 70 miles per hour on a city street when she plowed into a bus stop and killed a family of four. And she’s apparently going to walk for it. Listen to what Judge Bruce Chan said:

Chan said his duty was to balance the deaths with the other factors of the case, including Lau’s age, her lack of criminal history and her remorse, as well as the fact that her own husband had died in a car accident early on in their marriage.

“Mrs. Lau is going to spend the rest of her days living with the knowledge of the harm she has caused to others,” he said. Chan indicated his sentence, which will be confirmed at a subsequent hearing, would likely be two to three years of probation, during which time Lau would be prohibited from driving.

Oh fuck right off. I had a lot of poor clients who were very remorseful and had a lack of criminal history and went to jail for driving under the influence or possessing drugs or being a prostitute and DIDN’T KILL ANYBODY. In the early days of Three Strikes, I had a kid looking at life for boosting a car. 25 to life! (He didn’t get that, but that’s another story).

Wait, it gets worse somehow! It appears that Ms. Lau is a woman of some means because after the family filed a wrongful death suit, Ms. Lau “transferred her ownership interest in three San Francisco properties to two newly formed limited liability companies in Nevada” to try and shield her assets from judgment! Fucking hell.

So what does justice look like in a case like this? I don’t really know but I don’t think it’s probation and no jail time for a woman who was going 70 in a 25 zone and mowed down four people.

Sorry for the downer post. Back to lulz and good timez soon.

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