On the morning of Saturday, March 5, 2022, 14-year-old Marissa Cardona and her mother were traveling to a weekend softball tournament. As they passed through the intersection of Mount Whitney Avenue and Cedar Avenue in unincorporated Fresno County, Ashley Engen ran a stop sign at 76 miles per hour in her Lexus SUV and crashed into the Cardonas' vehicle. Marissa was pronounced dead at the scene. Her mother sustained a traumatic brain injury and needed a walker when she attended Engen's plea...

"Do you know what 'Mushroom Management' is? It's when you 'feed 'em shit and keep 'em in the dark.' That's how you grow mushrooms." --John Bravman In 2008, California became the first state in the nation to pass Marsy's Law — a sweeping set of constitutional protections designed to give crime victims and their families a genuine voice in the criminal justice process: the right to be notified of hearings, the right to be present, the right to be heard. California didn't just pass a law that...

There is an elephant in the room that I've avoided discussing. Over the years, I was often encouraged by those close to me to keep this blog and website positive. That advice, which I wholeheartedly agreed with, came from a good place. It reflected who Jenny was—a positive soul who inspired those around her to do wonderful deeds, just as she did. However, life since the accident has often been marked by a series of profound lows, precisely because of what happened that day. Though neither...