A law championed by Assemblyman Jim Patterson to increase penalties on hit-and-run drivers after a 2018 death of a Clovis Unified educator hit a stumbling block Friday in Sacramento.
The Senate Public Safety Committee failed to pass “Gavin’s Law,” named for Gavin Gladding, killed during a jog on Friant Road on Sept. 16, 2018, by a suspected impaired driver who fled the scene.
“Gavin’s Law” (previously known as AB 582, now as AB 195) would increase the penalty for hit-and-run with serious injury or death from two-to-four years to three-to-six years. It would also allow the judge discretion in sentencing.
The bill needed four votes; it received three votes from the seven members of the committee. Three abstained and one voted no.
