LAS VEGAS (AP) - A federal judge has vacated the convictions of a Las Vegas woman in the deaths of six teenagers killed in an Interstate 15 median in 2000.
U.S. District Court Judge Kent Dawson partially granted a writ of habeus corpus filed by attorney John Watkins of Pariente Law Firm on behalf of Jessica Williams, 40, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Williams, then 20, was driving when she ran into the teenagers, who were picking up debris and trash from a highway median as part of a county program, authorities said.
Williams served about 19 years in prison before she was paroled in October.
Writs of habeus corpus bring detainees before courts to determine if the persons’ imprisonment or detention is lawful.
Watkins argued that Williams “was denied due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment” and that law as written at the time of the crash “did not give fair warning that the presence of an inactive ingredient of marijuana, marijuana metabolite, in her bloodstream, would bring her within the terms of the statutes.”
Authorities identified the teenagers who were killed as: Scott Garner Jr., 14; Anthony T. Smith, 14; Jennifer Booth, 16; Alberto Puig, 16; Rebeccah Glicken, 15; and Maleyna Stoltzfus, 15.
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