Personal & legal

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Personal & legal

Ross's godfather, Joseph S. Busey, wrote the following article for his weekly column, "Ask Dr. Joe" in The Tehama Trader:

I remember you before you were born, even before you were conceived as your mother and I sat on the beach at the Sea of Cortez and plotted for her and your dad to have a baby, you, while he was out swimming blissfully among the small sharks.

I remember hanging out with your mom and dad all during the pregnancy, and going with them to the hospital and then holding you just minutes after you were born.

I remember baby-sitting your sleeping form downstairs while your mom and dad had a chance to be alone together upstairs.

I remember sitting in your kitchen in the big farmhouse while you started banging on the bottom of a pot with a spoon. Childlike, I joined you with another pot, and your dad starting pounding on a pan while your mom first registered her displeasure at all the noise, then broke into her famous cackle as the cacophony become one of those special, magic moments of memory.

I remember spending time teaching you to play catch, only to have the hardball (what a mistake) pass right through your waiting hands onto your nose, which promptly bloodied as you howled and your parents smilingly forgave me.

I remember as you entered into the Joke Phase, where your budding intellect categorized the world and then played with grouping the categories in your own developing sense of humor - though your parents and I never could understand why you burst into peals of laughter as you said time after time, "Joe, you're Cherries."

I remember all the Thanksgiving dinners, at least two dozen, where I watched you grow from a too-cute little boy to a strapping young man as tall as I and half a head higher than your proud father.

I remember riding shotgun with you the first time after you got your license and being pleasantly surprised at how carefully you drove (especially after riding, and flying, with your dad.)

I remember your valedictory speech at the American Christian Academy up in Redding, and your college odyssey first to Hampton-Sydney in Virginia, then to Santa Clara, then bypassing Cornell Law School, and finally, after spending a year in the financial world, deciding to attend the same law school in Boston as your fiancée does.

I remember you cradling my own young son in your arms and tearing up as I saw you together, for he looks so much like you as a child that whenever we're all together, I start calling him not Luke, but Ross.

And I remember three days ago, when your mother called in deep shock to say a driver didn't see you bicycling out by Occidental and hit you so hard your helmet shattered.

Now you lie in the Valley of the Shadow of Death and we all gather to pray to God for his mercy to spare your life and heal you.

Oh Ross, I remember too well . . .

I received this note tonight (2/16/03) from both Ross's family and Katie (his fiancée) and her family. It is posted with their permission:

Since Ross was hurt, the second or third question we are asked by those who hear Ross's story is: "What is going to happen to the driver?" We have not had a good answer to that question, indeed we still do not. But recently we spoke with an assistant District Attorney for Sonoma County who explained the law as it applies to Ross's case.

Had Ross not survived his injuries, the District Attorney could have prosecuted the driver for manslaughter since she drove off the road for no apparent reason and struck him in a marked bike lane. However, the law will not permit, and the District Attorney will not prosecute, any criminal offense for grave bodily injury under the same facts. Because Ross survived, the only other charge with which to prosecute the driver is reckless driving with bodily injury.

The position of the District Attorney's office is that failing to see a bicyclist, driving off the road, and plowing into someone is not reckless.The California Legislature would have to modify the Penal Code sections defining recklessness in order to support criminal prosecution in a case like Ross's.

To us, this means that the law offers no protection from inattentive, incompetent divers - not for bicyclists obeying the rules of the road, not for children walking to school, not for anyone else in the path of an

oncoming vehicle.

Obviously, this is unacceptable.

If you are as outraged as we are that the kind of catastrophic injuries Ross has suffered goes unpunished in our legal system, we would encourage you to take action. Write the Sonoma Country District Attorney. Write your representative in the California Legislature. Write your local newspaper or email your discussion group. We have absolutely nothing to lose.

The Meyers and Dillon families.