It has been six months since the family of former Iowa State University student Emmalee Jacobs sat in a courtroom to hear the man responsible for her death would be sentenced to only 30 days in jail.

A proposed law — known as Emmalee’s Law — drafted by the Story County Attorney’s Office, would clear up legal language in Iowa’s law that prosecutors said prevented them from pursuing more serious charges, and a lengthier sentence for defendants in cases such as Jacobs’. 

“The whole purpose behind this is to ensure that this never happens to another family,” Story County Attorney Jessica Reynolds said.

Jacobs, a freshman at Iowa State University, died in December 2015 after she was struck by a CyRide bus as she crossed Ash Avenue at Lincoln Way just after 7 a.m.

The driver of the bus, Benjamin Clague, now 24, was arrested on Jan. 20, 2016, and charged with leaving the scene of a personal injury accident and failure to obey a traffic control device.

In August, Clague pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of failure to report an accident, a simple misdemeanor, after the judge ruled in favor of the defense, saying the prosecution must prove Clague knew he struck a person at the time of the accident to pursue the more serious charges. According to Reynolds, the state’s argument was that Clague felt the impact and then later figured out what had happened, and did not report his involvement to police.

Reynolds said the judge’s ruling “was fatal” to the state’s case, and that the state could not prove the felony charge, so a plea agreement was reached.

The law states that a person operating a motor vehicle who leaves the scene of an accident without knowing if the accident resulted in injury to or death of another person must give notice of the accident to local law enforcement agencies immediately after the person realizes that the accident resulted in injury to or death of another person. 

Those who violate the law will be guilty of one of three charges. If the accident resulted in an injury to a person, it is a serious misdemeanor; if it resulted in a serious injury to a person, it is bumped to an aggravated misdemeanor; and if the accident resulted in the death of a person, it is considered a class D felony.

Because it’s only the first draft of the law, Reynolds said she is unsure whether this bill will go through judiciary or public safety committees of the Legislature when it’s introduced this session. Regardless, she said she encourages the public to contact local officials and push for the bill’s approval.

Though Reynolds said the bill is an important first step towards doing justice for future families, she said not a day goes by that she does not think about Emmalee, and the added pain the verdict caused her family.

“It hasn’t left my mind or the minds of those in the office,” Reynolds said. “It has been hard on all of us but I can’t imagine how painful it has been for the family.”