As most of you know, our family was involved in a car accident last year that resulted in the death of a young man who was driving a motorcycle. The accident was ruled our fault, and therefore they had to find something to give my husband a ticket for. Everyone agreed that the accident was truly just a tragic accident and even the police report from that day says that he didn't really see any fault. So they ended up giving him a ticket for "failure to yield" which is the lowest ticket they could have given. We went to court expecting it to really not be anything major, but when my husband went in front of the judge she refused to allow my husband to just plead guilty to the ticket. (we did not feel it was right to fight the ticket, we didn't feel like he had done anything wrong but did accept that the accident was our fault so we felt it was only right to accept the ticket). She had asked my husband to just sit back down and wait. We realized that this was something more than just paying a fine. An attorney came up to us and asked if he could speak to us. He explained that the judge would not accept his plea because she didn't feel that what the prosecutor (who had never met us or even knew anything about the situation) had recommended was fair or right in this situation. He had apparently recommended jail time without even reading the police report or any other information about the accident. He just saw that it was a fatality and recommended the highest that he could. So the judge had sent someone to speak to the prosecutor and when he realized the situation he immediately felt differently and sent a friend of his, who is an attorney, to speak with us. We explained to the attorney that we could not hire someone to defend us because of the beliefs of the church we were part of (the church taught non-resistance and that we could not defend ourseleves even if wrongfully accused) He understood and asked if he could work on our behalf it we did not "hire" him. We were amazed at his kindness. The whole thing was so stressful and I ended up miscarrying at 3 months (this was in december).
To make a really long story less long- Our final court date is tomorrow. Everything has worked out very well and they have ended up with giving him the least penalty possible (meaning that he will get points on his license and have to go to a driving school thing). Everyone has been incredibly kind, the jugde, the prosecutor, the attorney, every one we have come in contact with throughout this ordeal, even the family of the man who died has been very understanding and not at all had ill-wishes towards us. Still it feels a little anxious knowing that we have to go to court tomorrow to finalize everything. We are thankful though that it seems like we will finally be able to put this behind us (at least this part of it, I think that the pain of being in the accident and seeing a man lose his life will always be with us).
We would greatly appreciate your prayers for tomorrow. The attorney wanted me to be there, he said I shouldn't need to do or say anything, but since I was the only witness, he wanted me there anyway. I feel anxious about going, even though we already know what the outcome is supposed to be.
For anyone who doesn't know about this, here is a link to my original post, written a couple of days after the accident. It is my recount of what happened.
In His Abounding Grace,
In His Abounding Grace,
