Tesla Driver Charged With Manslaughter Over 73 mph Katy Crash
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- Michael David Butler, 44, of Richmond, was charged July 1 in Harris County's 208th District Court with one count of manslaughter in the June 19 death of 76-year-old Martha Avila; he remains in jail on a $150,000 bond, and manslaughter is a second-degree felony carrying two to 20 years in Texas.
- The criminal complaint, built from telemetry, dashcam footage, cellphone records, and medical evidence, alleges Butler held the accelerator "pedal to the metal" for about six seconds, reached roughly 73 mph, clipped the curb, went airborne, and never touched the brake in the final minute.
- Prosecutors recovered Google searches from Butler's phone — "Tesla fsd not aggressive enough 2026," "FSD is not aggressive enough for city driving," and "Tesla fsd too timid" — and are using them as evidence he overrode the speed on purpose.
- Butler was doing DoorDash deliveries and re-engaged FSD after his last drop-off; investigators ruled out mechanical failure, a stuck pedal, floor-mat interference, a medical event, drugs, and alcohol, and Butler told paramedics he remembered "changing the music" then "passed out."
- FSD was steering the entire time until Butler cancelled its turn — the article argues FSD's inconsistency (a "Sloth" profile that drives below the speed limit alongside a "Mad Max" mode that goes 15-30 mph over it) conditions drivers to keep a foot on the accelerator while letting the car keep steering.
- Avila's family has sued Tesla, leaning on a landmark $243 million Florida verdict in which a jury found Tesla 33% responsible for a crash despite a driver clearly misusing Autopilot, arguing its marketing and weak driver monitoring foster the false confidence in the first place.
Why it matters: Prosecutors are using Butler's own Google searches about FSD being "too timid" to argue the 73 mph override was deliberate — evidence harder to dismiss than Tesla's blanket "the driver overrode it" framing. The criminal case sits alongside Avila's family's civil suit, which leans on the $243 million Florida verdict that put one-third of the blame on Tesla even when a driver was misusing Autopilot, sharpening how much product design versus user error carries weight in court.
