Don’t Laugh at DUI Victims
Friday, May 26th, 2017A Michigan woman learned not to mock DUI victims the hard way; she was thrown in jail.
Amanda Kosal, 25, was in court and waiting to be sentenced for a DUI-related collision that killed Jerome Zirker, a father of five. While Zirker’s sister was giving the court a victim impact statement in court, Kosal’s mother, Donna, and Donna’s boyfriend could be heard laughing in the audience of the courtroom.
Judge Quiana Lillard heard the laughing and kicked Donna’s boyfriend out of the courtroom calling him a clown.
“It’s time for him to go … Whoever can sit here at a tragic moment like this and laugh and smile when somebody has lost a family member, I mean the entire time that Mr. Zirker’s sister was speaking, that clown, and that’s what I am going to call him, a clown, was sitting there smiling and laughing,” said Judge Lillard.
While Donna followed her boyfriend out of the courtroom, Judge Lillard said to her, “You can go too because if you don’t know how to act, you can go to jail, so leave.”
Donna could be heard saying something as she stepped out of the courtroom. Almost immediately after leaving the courtroom, Judge Lillard ordered her bailiff to bring Donna back into the courtroom where she was given 93 days in jail for contempt of court.
“Take her, she’s going in the back,” the judge said to the bailiffs.
Then Judge Lillard addressed the rest of the courtroom audience saying, “Anybody else wanna go? You can go too.”
“These are very serious matters. I understand that you all are very upset because your loved one is going to prison, but guess what, she’s going to prison for the choices that she made. These people are here grieving, saddened because a senseless act took away their loved one and you’re sitting here acting like it’s a joke?”
After spending the night in jail, Donna apologized to Judge Lillard the following morning saying, “I deeply apologize for what I did. I was under a lot of stress.”
Judge Lillard took pity on Donna and reduced her 93 days in jail to 92 days and was given credit for the night she spent in jail. She was then released.
“What you have to understand is as hard as this is for you to see your baby going to prison, imagine what that family feels like when their child is dead. I hope that you learned a valuable lesson from this,” said Judge Lillard.
Amanda Kosal, Donna’s daughter, was ultimately sentenced to three to 15 years in prison for the deadly DUI collision that killed Zirker. Kosal admitted that she was drunk when she veered into oncoming traffic colliding with Zirker’s SUV, killing him and severely injuring his fiancée, Brittany Johnson.
I represent DUI defendants like Kosal every day. I also represent people who have been charged with contempt of court. But that doesn’t mean that I condone either Kosal or her mother’s actions. In fact, I find them reprehensible.
The video of the incident can be found here: