Texting While Driving

An Orange County man was sentenced to 4 years in prison for killing a pedestrian who was walking in the crosswalk. Martin Kuehl, the driver of the vehicle, was texting while driving and was convicted of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence (California Penal Code Section 192).

Kuehl pleaded with the judge to not send him back to prison as he has been incarcerated previously for theft. But because the jury found that the accident happened due to gross negligence on Kuehl’s part, the judge was hesitant to sentence him to anything less than prison. A devastated Kuehl said “there’s not a day that passes that I don’t think of the consequences…that I caused this horrible accident.”

Kuehl’s defense during the trial was that there was a glare on the windshield which caused him to not see the victim. He denied texting while driving and said he only text messaged while stopped at a light.