Appeals Court Upholds Shepherd’s Conviction In 2018 Bus Stop Case
September 15, 2020 at 2:13 a.m.
By Amanda [email protected]
Shepherd, 24, was convicted in October by a jury in Fulton Superior Court of three counts of reckless homicide, Level 5 felonies; a Class A misdemeanor for reckless driving for passing a school bus with the arm extended, causing bodily injury; and criminal recklessness, a Level 6 felony.
Shepherd hit four children around 7:15 a.m. Oct. 30, 2018, as the children were crossing Ind. 25 north of Rochester to get on their school bus. She killed 9-year-old Alivia Stahl and Stahl’s 6-year-old twin brothers, Mason and Xzavier Ingle. Eleven-year-old Maverick Lowe was severely injured from the crash. Shepherd has maintained she did not recognize the vehicle as a school bus.
Fulton Superior Court Judge Greg Heller sentenced Shepherd in December to 10 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections, with four of those years to be served in prison, followed by three years on home detention and the remaining three years suspended to probation. The court also imposed a three-year driver’s license suspension on each reckless homicide conviction and a one-year license suspension on the criminal recklessness conviction. Shepherd had faced 21-1/2 years if given the maximum sentence.
Shepherd appealed her conviction on Jan. 16 on the grounds that the state failed to present substantial evidence from which recklessness could be inferred. Namely, that prosecutors failed to prove from which the jury could infer that Shepherd made a conscious choice to pass a stopped school bus. Shepherd’s appeal also accused the trial court of committing a reversible error by failing to give an instruction proposed by Shepherd’s jury trial counsel that elaborated on the definition between negligence and recklessness. Shepherd also said her convictions for criminal recklessness and recklessly passing a school bus violate the double jeopardy law and also asked the appeals court to have her driver’s license suspension not run consecutively.
On Monday, the Indiana Court of Appeals concluded “that sufficient evidence supported the jury’s verdicts and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Shepherd’s proposed instruction. However, Shepherd’s Class A misdemeanor criminal reckless conviction violated common law double jeopardy principles, and we vacate that conviction. We also conclude that it cannot be discerned from the record before us whether the trial court impermissibly imposed consecutive suspensions of Shepherd’s driving privileges, and we remand exclusively for the issuing of a clarified sentencing order that indicates Shepherd’s license suspensions are to be served concurrently.”
Fulton County Prosecutor Mike Marrs said he and Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rachel Arndt are thrilled with the decision.
“We were cautiously optimistic, but it’s what we were hoping for,” Marrs said, adding that Shepherd has the right to now appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court.
“It’s not necessarily over, but it was a big step in the right direction.”
Marrs said the ruling is especially rewarding because of the MAXSTRONG school bus legislation that was passed named after the victims in the case. He hopes this ruling will send a clear message to drivers and prosecutors around the state that these cases are punishable, and hopefully it will make children safer.
“We’re happy, we’re relieved,” Arndt said.
According to Indiana Department of Correction records, Shepherd is serving her sentence at the Rockville Correctional Facility with an earliest possible release date of Sept. 17, 2022.
Shepherd, 24, was convicted in October by a jury in Fulton Superior Court of three counts of reckless homicide, Level 5 felonies; a Class A misdemeanor for reckless driving for passing a school bus with the arm extended, causing bodily injury; and criminal recklessness, a Level 6 felony.
Shepherd hit four children around 7:15 a.m. Oct. 30, 2018, as the children were crossing Ind. 25 north of Rochester to get on their school bus. She killed 9-year-old Alivia Stahl and Stahl’s 6-year-old twin brothers, Mason and Xzavier Ingle. Eleven-year-old Maverick Lowe was severely injured from the crash. Shepherd has maintained she did not recognize the vehicle as a school bus.
Fulton Superior Court Judge Greg Heller sentenced Shepherd in December to 10 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections, with four of those years to be served in prison, followed by three years on home detention and the remaining three years suspended to probation. The court also imposed a three-year driver’s license suspension on each reckless homicide conviction and a one-year license suspension on the criminal recklessness conviction. Shepherd had faced 21-1/2 years if given the maximum sentence.
Shepherd appealed her conviction on Jan. 16 on the grounds that the state failed to present substantial evidence from which recklessness could be inferred. Namely, that prosecutors failed to prove from which the jury could infer that Shepherd made a conscious choice to pass a stopped school bus. Shepherd’s appeal also accused the trial court of committing a reversible error by failing to give an instruction proposed by Shepherd’s jury trial counsel that elaborated on the definition between negligence and recklessness. Shepherd also said her convictions for criminal recklessness and recklessly passing a school bus violate the double jeopardy law and also asked the appeals court to have her driver’s license suspension not run consecutively.
On Monday, the Indiana Court of Appeals concluded “that sufficient evidence supported the jury’s verdicts and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Shepherd’s proposed instruction. However, Shepherd’s Class A misdemeanor criminal reckless conviction violated common law double jeopardy principles, and we vacate that conviction. We also conclude that it cannot be discerned from the record before us whether the trial court impermissibly imposed consecutive suspensions of Shepherd’s driving privileges, and we remand exclusively for the issuing of a clarified sentencing order that indicates Shepherd’s license suspensions are to be served concurrently.”
Fulton County Prosecutor Mike Marrs said he and Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rachel Arndt are thrilled with the decision.
“We were cautiously optimistic, but it’s what we were hoping for,” Marrs said, adding that Shepherd has the right to now appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court.
“It’s not necessarily over, but it was a big step in the right direction.”
Marrs said the ruling is especially rewarding because of the MAXSTRONG school bus legislation that was passed named after the victims in the case. He hopes this ruling will send a clear message to drivers and prosecutors around the state that these cases are punishable, and hopefully it will make children safer.
“We’re happy, we’re relieved,” Arndt said.
According to Indiana Department of Correction records, Shepherd is serving her sentence at the Rockville Correctional Facility with an earliest possible release date of Sept. 17, 2022.
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