Merced DA's son pleads guilty in fatal DUI case

<p>The son of Merced County’s chief prosecutor pleaded guilty Friday to every criminal charge lodged against him in connection with a February drunken-driving crash that killed one man and injured two others at a Sonoma County intersection.</p><p>Dylan Morse, 18, faces a maximum 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the Valentine’s Day collision that took the life of Berkeley art student Alex Ruiz, 22.</p><p>Morse’s own close friend, Ryne Spitzer, 19, was left in a coma. Ruiz’s friend and passenger, Vanessa King, 25, also was injured.</p><p>There was no plea deal, no promise of leniency, attorneys in the case said. Morse wanted to “plead to the sheet,” his lawyer said.</p><p>“My client had no interest in contesting any of this,” defense attorney Chris Andrian said following Friday’s proceeding.</p><p>He said Morse, a Cabrillo College student at the time of the crash, has been undergoing alcohol rehabilitation at a residential treatment center in Florida and delayed pleading guilty in the case only because Andrian insisted he wait until they had all the evidence and crash analysis, Andrian said.</p><p>But Ruiz’s father, Michael Ruiz, one of about two dozen Ruiz family members and friends who attended Friday’s hearing, suggested Morse’s admissions might be too little, too late.</p><p>Though Morse was finally starting down “the road of accountability,” it was only after making the victims’ loved ones wait, Michael Ruiz said.</p><p>“Unfortunately, in the allegiance to due diligence, the defendant, Dylan Morse, has chosen to walk for three months away from where his true heart would lead him,” he said.</p><p>Morse, who attended school in Santa Cruz County, was in Sonoma County to visit Spitzer, a Sonoma State University student, when the crash occurred.</p><p>Both were under age when they went out to party that night, later buying beer at a supermarket with a fake license, according to attorneys involved in the case.</p><p>Morse had a blood alcohol level of at least 0.15 percent, nearly twice the legal limit for an adult, and also had marijuana in his system when he ran a red light at Stony Point Road and Highway 116, where he struck and killed Ruiz, authorities said.</p><p>He pleaded guilty to three felonies and three misdemeanor counts Friday, including vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence; driving under the influence causing great bodily injury; driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent or higher and causing bodily injury; under-age possession of alcohol; possession of a false driver’s license; and possession of under one ounce of marijuana.</p><p>He also admitted numerous enhancements because there were multiple victims and serious injuries.</p><p>His mother, a family law attorney, attended court with him Friday, sitting by his side while they waited for his case to come up and wiping occasional tears from her eyes. Both she and her son declined comment Friday.</p><p>Morse’s father, Larry Morse II, has not attended recent court hearings and was not present Friday. Mores, the district attorney for Merced County, did not return a phone call to his office Friday afternoon.</p><p>Deputy Sonoma County District Attorney Robert Waner said Morse is technically eligible for probation in the criminal case, though under the law the case is presumed to result in prison time.</p><p>He would not say what his own recommendation would be, but said, given the totality of the circumstances, “it’s going to be a very challenging sentencing case for the court.”</p><p>Judge Kenneth Gnoss scheduled Morse’s sentencing for July 15.</p><p>Ruiz’s parents also have filed a wrongful death suit against Morse, separate from the criminal case. The civil case names as defendants a Safeway where Morse and Spitzer allegedly bought some beer, and Spitzer, a move his father called “as ridiculous a thing as I can imagine.”</p><p>Spitzer is in residential care with severe head injuries, though he’s making “little baby steps” toward recovery, his father, Merced otolaryngologist Mark Spitzer, said Friday.</p><p>King suffered a broken arm and collar bone. She attended court on Friday but declined comment.</p><p>Ruiz’s family members greeted each other with tears and smiles before the hearing, liberally exchanging hugs and words of support.</p><p>After court, they formed a tight knot for a group hug around Ruiz’s mother, Lydia, as she wept.</p><p>Before he joined it, Michael Ruiz was asked if there was any comfort in Morse’s plea.</p><p>“The court is really not the place where healing happens,” he said.</p>