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Middletown v. Campbell9/17/1990
HENDRICKSON, Judge.
Defendant-appellant, Shirley Campbell, appeals her convictions in Middletown Municipal Court for vehicular homicide and failure to discharge children to a place of safety. We affirm.
On September 14, 1989, appellant was driving a school bus on which seven-year-old Christina Case was a passenger. She stopped the bus on Young Street near its intersection with Girard in the city of Middletown. Four students alighted from the bus, including Christina. While Christina was crossing Young Street in front of the bus, appellant drove the bus forward and ran over her with both the front and back wheels, causing her death.
Appellant was charged with violating Middletown City Ordinance Section 434.08, vehicular homicide, and R.C. 4511.75(E), failure to discharge children to a place of safety. The case was tried to the court, on October 23, 1989. At the close of the state's case and at the close of all the evidence, the trial court overruled appellant's motions for judgment of acquittal. Subsequently, appellant was found guilty as charged. Her motions for acquittal after the verdict and for a new trial were also overruled. This appeal followed.
Appellant presents five assignments of error for review. In her first assignment of error, she states that the trial court erred in overruling her motions for judgment of acquittal. She argues that R.C. 4511.75(E) does not apply to bus drivers transporting students for a city school district. We find this assignment of error is not well taken.
R.C. 4511.75(E) provides:
"No school bus driver shall start his bus until after any child or person attending programs offered by community boards of mental health and county boards of mental retardation and developmental disabilities who may have alighted therefrom has reached a place of safety on his residence side of the road."
Appellant claims that she could not be convicted of violating this statute because Christina did not attend a program offered by a community board of mental health or a county board of mental retardation and developmental disabilities. We disagree.
"It is a cardinal rule that a court must first look to the language of the statute itself to determine legislative intent. * * * If that inquiry reveals that the statute conveys a meaning which is clear, unequivocal and definite, at that point the interpretive effort is at an end and the statute must be applied accordingly." Provident Bank v. Wood (1973), 36 Ohio St.2d 101, 105-106, 65 O.O.2d 296, 298, 304 N.E.2d 378, 381; see, also, State v. Carter (1983), 3 Ohio St.3d 15, 16, 3 OBR 362, 363, 444 N.E.2d 1334, 1336. R.C. 4511.75(E) on its face applies to school bus drivers transporting two classes of persons: (1) children, and (2) persons attending the specified programs. The phrase "attending programs offered by community boards of mental health and county boards of mental retardation and development disabilities" modifies the word "person," not the word "child." Further, R.C. 4511.75 is the first of a series of statutes under the caption "school buses." R.C. 4511.75 itself is titled " topping for school buses; signals." While these titles are not part of the law itself, they indicate that R.C. 4511.75 applies to school buses generally, not just school buses transporting a small class of persons.
Additionally, R.C. 4511.75 is a recodification of G.C. 6307-73, which stated: "No school bus driver shall start his bus until after any child who may have alighted therefrom shall have reached a place of safety." See Culwell v. Brust (1949), 91 Ohio App. 309, 311, 48 O.O. 398, 399-340, 108 N.E.2d 173, 175. Courts in ot
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