The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Man convicted in traffic deaths wins on appeal





The Kentucky Court of Appeals has ruled that 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 nearly three years ago.

26, a three-judge Court of Appeals reverses the April 2007 conviction of Jason Ray Ison and orders the dismissal of charges of first-degree assault, first-degree wanton endangerment (two counts), and reckless homicide (three counts). The appeal was filed on Ison’s behalf after he was sentenced to 18-1/ 2 years in prison.

The Appeals Court ruling, which was ordered to be published for use as legal precedent in Kentucky, says the jury was not presented with enough evidence against Ison to support its “clearly unreasonable” finding that Ison was acting “with criminal conduct” when he lost control of the Ford Mustang he was driving on KY 15 near Van and crashed it into an oncoming vehicle driven by Tracy Craft.

The wreck, which occurred on the rainy afternoon of October 21, wife, Misty, his best friend, Jimmy Boggs, and his cousin, Allen Bailey. The impact also resulted in a severe leg injury to Ms. Craft. Two passengers in her SUV were not injured.

In reversing Ison’s conviction, the Appeals Court panel agreed with Ison’s argument that Letcher Circuit Judge Samuel T. Wright III should have entered a directed verdict of not guilty on Ison’s behalf after it became clear during the trial that “there was insufficient proof of the necessary mental states” required to prove that Ison was behaving under “circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life” when the wreck occurred.

The ruling does let stand Ison’s misdemeanor convictions on charges of having defective equipment on his car (bald rear tires) and failing to have automotive insurance. Still, the panel said it could find “no pertinent Kentucky legal authority linking excessively worn tires to charges of reckless homicide.”

“Instead,” the ruling says, “published Kentucky cases relating to reckless homicide convictions have involved circumstances such as driving under the influence.”

That possibility was removed from the case, the ruling said, when Ison was acquitted during the trial of one count of driving under the influence of drugs. The ruling points out that while testing of urine samples taken from Ison 2-1/2 and 5-1/2 hours after the accident showed traces of the painkiller hydrocodone, the anti-anxiety drug alprazolam, and marijuana, tests on blood samples taken at the same times showed there “was no drug-related impairment” of Ison’s driving ability.

The Letcher Commonwealth Attorney’s office “provided no evidence to counter the toxicologist’s conclusion that Ison was not under the influence or impaired by any chemical substance at the time of the collision and the jury found Ison not guilty of DUI,” the ruling says. “Moreover, although a witness testified that he sold the Mustang to Ison’s mother approximately one year before the collision after telling Ison the car was ‘loaded up’ and ‘powerful,’ we find no authority for concluding that the mere driving of such a vehicle, even one with worn tires, in and of itself constitutes extreme indifference to the value of any human life. Absent proof sufficient to satisfy the elevated wantonness element of first-degree assault and firstdegree wanton endangerment, it was ‘clearly unreasonable for the jury to find’ that Ison was guilty of either charge.”

The ruling by the Appeals Court panel also noted “strong public sentiment against Ison, based on the apparently popular public belief that the collision resulted from Ison driving at an excessive speed while under the influence of alcohol and/or three types of drugs. At trial, however, no evidence showed that Ison was impaired by any substance at the time of the collision, or that he drove recklessly or above the speed limit before the collision.”

“Instead,” concludes the panel, “the evidence showed only that at the time of the undeniably tragic collision Ison was driving a car with worn tires, in the rain, at or below the speed limit, and that he lost control of his vehicle before crossing into the oncoming lane of traffic. Even in light of the horrific results, in the absence of some aggravating circumstance such as being under the influence of alcohol or controlled substances, traveling at excessive speed, or violating traffic statutes, Ison’s driving of a vehicle with worn tires did not constitute criminal conduct with the prerequisite mental state for ‘reckless’ behavior.'”

Ison was represented during his appeal by Roy Alyette Durham, an attorney with the Department for Public Advocacy in Frankfort. The commonwealth was represented by Assistant Kentucky Attorney General David W. Barr of Frankfort.

Letcher Commonwealth’s Attorney Edison G. Banks II said family members of those killed in the wreck have written Barr a letter asking the Attorney General’s Office to ask the Court of Appeals to reconsider last week’s ruling.

Ison has been serving his sentence at the Little Sandy Correctional Complex in Sandy Hook, Ky., where he remained Tuesday afternoon.


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