Oklahoma Mother Wants a Harsher Sentence for the Woman Accused of Killing Her Son

Editor's note: The following is a first-person news account from Associated Content CP Rosa Hayes, who lost her son in an auto accident. Hayes wrote about the death of her son here. She lives in Oklahoma City.

I was notified that the lady who had killed my son, Gaje Florence, was only getting charged with negligent homicide. Negligent homicide only carries a one year sentence term in Oklahoma. Our family has been outraged over this. We felt that we needed to make a change to the negligent homicide charge so that no one else has to go through this.

I looked up the meaning of negligent homicide. Negligent means to not care or to be careless and homicide means death by another person. The lady who killed Gaje was being negligent when she refused to look behind her when backing into our driveway. If someone refuses to be careful while driving a vehicle and it ends in someone getting hurt or dying, then that person should have a more harsh punishment than only a year in jail.

Our family has started a petition for Gaje in hopes that it will change the law so that if anyone else is charged with negligent homicide, they will receive a harsher punishment. We all feel that people have the option to be careful while behind the wheel of a vehicle and due to people not being careful while driving, there are accidents and deaths.

The petition states the events that lead up to the accused being convicted of negligent homicide. Our family plans to send this petition to the state legislature of Oklahoma once there are enough signatures on it.

Our family has begun to post the petition link on places across the web like myspace, blogs, sites, and forums. We are asking for everyone to sign the petition if they agree with its cause. We are trying to capture as many signatures as possible before Murguia goes to court on the 28th of June. We are hoping to get the charge of negligent homicide, moved into a higher crime category so that it will have a more punishable sentence.

Our family and friends have already begun to sign the petition but we are asking for a much higher response to this.