Youngstown Daily Legal News

Woman loses appeal of vehicular homicide conviction in death of fiance

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: July 24, 2014

The 9th District Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Summit County Court of Common Pleas recently, convicting defendant Jessica Thomas of aggravated vehicular homicide and three counts of OVI.

The case stemmed from a fatal traffic accident involving Thomas and her fiancé, Jeffrey Spencer that occurred during the early morning hours of March 31, 2012.

“Spencer tragically passed away due to injuries suffered during the accident,” case summary states.

After Thomas initially pleaded not guilty to the charges against her the case went to a trial by jury, which found Thomas guilty of all four counts in the indictment against her.

The Summit County court imposed a total prison sentence of three years.

Upon direct appeal to the 9th District, Thomas argued that her convictions were against the sufficiency and manifest weight of the evidence because there was no proof that she was the driver of the vehicle.

A three-judge appellate panel reviewed the record of the trial where the state presented evidence demonstrating that Thomas and Spencer were involved in a car accident after going out for drinks in Springfield Township.

There were no eyewitnesses to the accident. Instead, a woman called 911 at approximately 2:40 a.m. after noticing that a vehicle had gone off the road.

First responders discovered a 2001 Ford Taurus that had gone off State Route 241 and crashed into a tree.

The car had flipped onto its left side and the front end was pressed against the base of the tree.

Thomas’ lower body was trapped between the driver’s seat and the steering wheel with her feet caught beneath the pedals.

Spencer was partially ejected from the vehicle through the driver’s side window.

First responders found him lying on the ground with his left leg trapped under the car.

A certified technical crash investigator testified that neither person appeared to be wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident.

Test results from the State Highway Patrol’s forensic laboratory indicated that Thomas was over the lawful blood-alcohol limit when the crash occurred and that she was under the influence of marijuana.

Steven Schultz, a firefighter and paramedic at scene, testified that he spoke with Thomas after she was removed from the driver’s seat and placed in the ambulance.

When asked if she had been drinking that evening, Thomas replied that she “had a s--- ton.”

Schultz also stated that when he asked Thomas if she had been driving the vehicle, she responded affirmatively.

“This evidence, when construed in the light most favorable to the state, was sufficient to demonstrate that Thomas was the driver of the vehicle,” wrote Judge Donna Carr on behalf of the court of appeals.

However, in her manifest weight argument, Thomas urged the appellate panel to consider the testimony of her defense witnesses, one of whom was James Crawford, a qualified expert in accident reconstruction.

Crawford suggested that the occupants of the Ford Taurus would have been jarred by three separate collisions during the course of the crash.

The first occurred when they hit a fire hydrant, the second was a large embankment and then the tree.

According to Crawford, the collision with the embankment caused the driver to slide against the window with the front passenger sliding into the driver’s seat.

In his opinion, the driver was Spencer and he was ejected from the vehicle when the car struck the tree.

Thomas was the passenger and she came to rest in the driver’s seat.

On cross-examination, the state challenged Crawford’s credibility based on the fact that he used almost identical language in a report that he had prepared for another case.

Thomas testified in her defense that she awoke in the hospital several days after the accident and could not remember who was driving the vehicle.

In rebuttal, the state called Sgt. John Thorne of the Ohio State Highway Patrol who was also a qualified expert in accident reconstruction.

Thorne “sharply disagreed” with Crawford’s analysis and opined that Thomas was the driver.

In his analysis, Spencer passed over Thomas as he was ejected from the car.

Defense counsel challenged Thorne’s credibility too, arguing that his educational background did not include formal schooling in physics or engineering.

The court of appeals held that simply because the parties presented conflicting testimony did not mean that there was a manifest miscarriage of justice.

“We note that the trier of fact was in the best position to evaluate the credibility of witnesses, and this court will not overturn the trial court’s verdict on a manifest weight of the evidence challenge simply because the trial court chose to believe certain witnesses’ testimony over the testimony of others,” wrote Judge Carr.

The appellate panel went on to overrule Thomas’ remaining assignments of error where she argued that the trial court erred by eliciting expert testimony from lay witnesses and that she should have been granted a mistrial after evidence of juror misconduct came to light.

Following its review of the record, the court of appeals determined that the trial court properly limited the contentious testimony.

Additionally, it found that the juror misconduct was remedied when the trial court dismissed the juror in question and then conducted a “methodical inquiry” into the remaining jurors’ ability to decide the case fairly and impartially.

Presiding Judge Jennifer Hensal and Judge Beth Whitmore joined Judge Carr to affirm the judgment of the Summit County court.

The case is cited State v. Thomas, 2014-Ohio-2920.

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