Supreme Court asked to reverse ruling that clears Jason Ray Ison

JASON RAY ISON State prosecutors have asked the Kentucky Supreme Court to reverse a recent decision by the Court of Appeals which says a 24-year-old Letcher County man was wrongly convicted of six criminal charges filed against him after his wife and two other passengers in his car were killed in a traffic accident near Whitesburg in October 2005.

A motion for discretionary review filed by the Kentucky Attorney General's Office says the Appeals Court was wrong when it ruled that Letcher Circuit Judge Samuel T. Wright III should have ended the April 2007 trial of Jason Ray Ison and found Ison innocent by directed verdict when evidence showed that Ison was not intoxicated at the time the wreck occurred.

Citing previous convictions which withstood appeals in Pennsylvania and Maine, the motion filed by Assistant Attorney General David W. Barr says a Letcher Circuit Court jury did in fact act properly when it determined that Ison committed three counts of reckless homicide when he wrecked his Ford Mustang while driving at the speed limit on "bald" tires on a rainslickened KY Highway 15.

"… the Court of Appeals found (Ison's) conduct was not reckless because respondent was not intoxicated and because the collision did not involve 'excessive speed' or 'traffic violations," the latest motion says. "The Commonwealth disagrees. The speed limit on the stretch of Highway 15 where the collision occurred is 55 miles per hour. An eyewitness testified that respondent was driving at the speed limit. The Commonwealth would note that the speed limit is just that, a limit. … This motor vehicle collision occurred on a wet highway, while it was raining. Driving 55 miles per hour on a wet highway, while it is raining, in a car with two practically bald rear tires is not 'reasonable and prudent.' It is wanton conduct. It is reckless conduct."

"Further," says the motion, "there were traffic violations relevant to this motor vehicle collision. The jury found respondent guilty of no registration plates. It was illegal for respondent to operate his vehicle upon Highway 15, or any other public road. His failure to obey this law was a proximate cause of the collision. But for respondent willfully disobeying the law, the vehicle would not have been upon the road and the fatal collision would not have occurred. And Misty Ison, Jimmy Dean Boggs and Buddy Allen Bailey would still be alive. And Tracey Craft would not have suffered serious, permanent injuries."

The motion asks the Supreme Court to "grant discretionary review to decide whether intoxication is a mandatory element of reckless conduct in the context of fatal motor vehicle collisions and whether the totality of the circumstances herein provided sufficient evidence to overcome a motion for a directed verdict of acquittal. The Commonwealth asks the Court to grant discretionary review and overrule the opinion of the Court of Appeals of September 26, 2008."

Ison was sentenced to 18-1/2 years in prison. He is currently serving his term at the Little Sandy Correctional Complex in Sandy Hook, Ky.