I heart the Fifth Amendment

On October 3rd, my family's life shifted. We went from talking about plans for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my upcoming graduation to talking about the next minutes, hours, and days -- about funeral services, police statements, and the fact that life is a very, very precious and precarious thing.

Today plane tickets were bought for my family to attend my graduation from college in May. I was a bit frustrated with the chunk of my day that it was taking and it was only in retrospect that I saw the normalcy of it. I sit here tonight thankful that my family is able to think five months out, that we are no longer doing damage control and holding our lives together.

I say this because we got good and bad news this week. The bad news is that Little Bo is facing a charge for the accident. The good news is apparently someone in the city government issued a traffic citation while the more serious charges sat on the county prosecutors desk. Not only did they issue them, but the traffic charge file doesn't even include the police report! It was only because the file did not contain the police report, and there was discussion about how to get evidence from the police report entered into the record without it being hearsay, that we would find out the great news.

It turns out that this violation is a city statute that doesn't line up with the state code. This means the charges can't be amended to include more serious criminal charges at the Superior court level. When Little Bo pays the fine, the city will be forced to close the case. Then under double jeopardy rules the county prosecutor won't be able to issue further charges based on the same evidence. Additionally, the only time details of the case would ever be released is if a judge orders the file to be opened. I think it will be the best $124 dollars that we have ever spent

Writing this check my family looks once again to the future. Little Bo has been talking about colleges, and he has taken a renewed interest in school. I am so proud of him for coming through this standing tall.