Originally Posted by bikingshearer

No, with this result, better the DA pleaded it out. A 25 year sentence with a 17.5 year minimum served is pretty severe. Doing it this way spares the family the unpleasantness of a trial, and one can hardly say this doesn't send a message that you better not try to pull a hit-and-run, at least in that part of Iowa. (And a cyclist gets some after-the-fact respect as someone deserving of being on the road - methinks I smell some RAGBRAI rub-off effect. Good.) Had it been six months in the county lock-up, I'd feel differently. But this strikes me as the right result, all things considered.

As for the severity of the sentence, it is well-deserved. The driver was drunk. He left the guy to die. He not only did nothing to help his victim, he stole the guy's bike and dumped it down the rode to try to hide evidence. That is pretty calculated, not to mention cold-blooded. That kind of behavior needs to treated harshly - not because he killed a cyclist, but because he killed a human being through a series of grossly antisocial, borderline sociopathic actions that any ten year old knows are flat-out wrong. The fact that it was a cyclist who died obviously strikes us a little closer to home, but it's the overarching inhumanity of this guy that will and should keep him behind bars until 2023.