Terrible story from Kennewick, Washington: Randall Foos, an ELCA pastor, was driving his car and hit a bicylist. Her name was Sara Casey, she was 19 years old, and she died. Pastor Foos has been arraigned on charges of second-degree manslaughter.
This is an awful thing, but we all know that traffic accidents happen. Here's the part that ticks us off at the Egg: the accident took place in 2003. Foos has only just been charged because of new evidence that, three years ago, he couldn't see well enough to drive.
This raises some questions. First: Did anybody test his vision after the accident? Police, insurance companies, anybody? And second, which is more to our point: Don't Christian ethics -- which are more stringent than state traffic laws -- require a blind driver to admit that his blindness has resulted in a young woman's death?
Now, the jury is still out -- literally, figuratively, whatever. Maybe the "new evidence" is misleading. Prosecutors have been known to suffer an excess of zeal. Maybe the guy's vision was better than the state will argue. Maybe the bicylist was pedalling recklessly, without the right reflectors, and a person with 20-20 eyes would have hit her just as easily.
But here's the part that makes me shudder: If this man is guilty, how has he lived with himself these past three years?
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