Of course, the prosecutor is judge and jury in this case because they are not pressing charges. I'm almost certain uber would be held liable by any jury who heard that they intentionally turned off the braking that could have saved this woman's life. Then again, it is Arizona so it's not surprising that this is not even being prosecuted. Uber must be bringing in a ton of money to the state there to get off so easily.
I'm not so sure. Uber's defense here amounts to blaming the safety driver for the crash. They can argue that their actions improved the safety of the self-driving car (by reducing erratic movements due to false positive) so long as the safety driver is performing their job properly. Absent a smoking gun email that says "yep, we know this is unsafe, we don't care" (basically the Ford Pinto scenario), I don't think a guilty verdict is near-certain.
