(Photo © Jonathan Maus)
The Deputy District Attorney for Multnomah County Chuck Sparks wants the community to know that upon further analysis, his office believes the injuries sustained by Steven Volz in a collision on July 31st in Gresham constitute “serious physical injury”.
In a story posted on September 4th, I reported that Gresham DA Ben O’Glasser had elected to not seek Reckless Driving charges against the motor vehicle operator in the case, Lance Waddy. I then asked O’Glasser if the Careless Driving charge came with the new Vulnerable Roadway Users portion of the statute (which carries much higher consequences).
O’Glasser’s answer was no, that because they felt Volz’s injuries did not rise to the level of “serious physical injury” as defined by Oregon law, the Vulnerable statute would not apply (“serious physical injury” is required to trigger the new law).
After that story ran, I was contacted by Deputy DA Sparks (who is not only O’Glasser’s boss but is also seen as something of an expert on bike-related criminal cases). Sparks wanted to make it clear that — while there won’t be a felony crime in this case either way (the Reckless charge is a traffic crime, Careless Driving is a traffic violation) — the DA’s office in fact does think that Volz’s injuries were serious.
“We were looking over the analysis and we wanted to correct the record in that we think there was serious physical injury in this case,” said Sparks via telephone last week. (He added that O’Glasser ran that opinion by him but he was focusing on the more important issue (for them) of whether or not the Reckless charge should stand.)
I reported that Volz only suffered a few broken bones as a result of being thrown nearly 140 feet in the rear-end collision. However, Sparks tells me that Volz actually broke 12 ribs (not the one I reported) and also had a C7 vertebral fracture. “Taken all together,” said Sparks, “there was serious physical injury.”
It’s important to note that the DA only deals with felony-level crimes criminal cases and their opinion on Volz’s injury level doesn’t impact their decision-making on the criminal Reckless Driving charge. That charge was dropped by the DA, because as I reported on September 4th, they felt there was not a chance to prove to a jury that Mr. Waddy’s actions rose to the level of recklessness needed by Oregon law.
I brought up the ongoing comments regarding this case to DA Sparks (some readers are still wondering why the Reckless charge was dropped). He said, “We look at every case carefully, we don’t look at a case and say, ‘hey we’d really like to prosecute this guy, let’s go after him’, we look at the facts.”
Sparks said the decision to not go further with the Reckless charge was based on, “the case law that supports the finding of recklessness that has been developed over the years.” According to Sparks, recklessness usually involves some level of intoxication or some “fairly extreme behavior” and a “conscious disregard” for one’s actions.
Sparks characterized Waddy’s actions as being “sort of inattentive” which he said is “a very common thing for drivers” that “happens all the time.”
Does this mean that driver Lance Waddy will now be eligible for the more serious Careless Driving with a Vulnerable Roadway User?
Unfortunately, even with the recognition by the Deputy DA that Volz did in fact suffer “serious physical injury”, Waddy pled “no contest” to the Careless Driving charge (without the Vulnerable user portion of the statute) on August 26th and therefore will not face the elevated consequences.