As to crossing the white line, the only reasoning I can come up with in my mind that makes half way sense is that the sheriff is treating the shoulder edge as a separate traffic lane and that he says the bike failed to yield to traffic already in the main lane when merging over into it?

If there was actually an encoded law or court case precedent that when a cyclist is riding on the shoulder edge that shoulder edge is legally another traffic lane that could make some sense and it would be like two cars on a road with two lanes in each direction with the car in the slow lane not checking his mirrors or signaling before switching into the fast lane and getting hit by a car that was already in the fast lane that he should have yielded to when merging over into the other lane.

Not saying that it's a legitimate stand, just saying that's the only kind of logic I can make out of the Sheriffs statement although I strongly suspect the Sheriff may believe that cyclists are never allowed to use the main traffic lane and must always stay to the right of the white fog line on the shoulder edge. Something both I and the law in any state would strongly disagree with.

On a side note whenever I ride FRAP on the shoulder edge to the right of the white fog line I personally always treat moving over that line back into the main traffic lane as a lane change and check for a clear spot to merge over and signal my intentions before doing so. I've seen some cyclists ride on the shoulder edge to the right of the white line and then swerve out into the main lane to go around hazards on the shoulder edge without checking behind them first and that always scares me when I see them do that because all it takes is one car in the wrong spot when you do that without checking first to nail you. Not saying that is what the cyclist did just mentioning it as an FYI for something to not do in order to increase your chances of staying alive.

Also, totally agree with the previous comments by others about this being one of the disadvantages of the "innocent until proven guilty system" sometimes there are people you just know are guilty and they might even wink and hint that your right but you can't prove it so they get off scott free with a smirk on their fact and that is really, really frustrating. Still probably better then the alternative of "guilty until proven innocent" for a free society but still really annoying when some people manage to get away with stuff just because you can't prove they really did it.