Nice piece of armchair quarterbacking there, 43 inches. I'm sure there have been plenty of successful turnbacks that would have resulted in a worse outcome had the pilot just gone straight ahead.
Not at all, earlier it was stated there was video evidence presented showing the pilot had 'thrown' the aircraft into a tight low level turn and lost control as a result, the result being an out of control impact rather than in control. An inquest would have come to the same conclusion, the same aviation experts would have made the judgement instead. A steep turn at low level is not considered appropriate reaction in this situation and if the pilot had the reputation of rash flying behavior, well it bit him in the end. Why was he in the situation at low level where landing on the water was the only option? He put himself there, sorry, but we all make choices, Murphy came up and bit him on the arse and somebody died as a result. Think ahead, plan for the unexpected, when it does occur don't rush into an attitude that can lead to loss of control. The video was a good example of taking the rough over the chance at the tarmac, Sully chose the Hudson over a risky flight over built up areas, the list goes on. The list of those that lost control at low level and caused fatalities is even longer. The reason that a pilot is told to lower the nose and land straight ahead at low level is exactly because of startle factor, most pilots wont have the mental gymnastics to calculate if a risky turn is going to work, so its much easier to drill land straight ahead on the softest thing possible.
BTW a murder trial Jury most likely have never murdered anyone, fired a gun, tried to hide evidence and so on, yet they rely on the experts testimony as to the whys and hows.
If you were driving a car and were suddenly faced with an obstruction and instead of braking straight ahead chose to hit the accelerator and try to drift around the object and your passenger died you would probably be in the same court, with similar charges.