Youngstown Daily Legal News

Appellate court reverses prison sentence for woman who fled scene of accident

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: April 21, 2015

A Cincinnati woman who was sentenced to one year in prison after admitting that she failed to stop after an accident had her sentenced reversed recently by a panel of judges in the 1st District Court of Appeals.

The defendant, Latonya Jones, was driving an SUV when she struck a motorcycle on Spring Grove Avenue in Cincinnati.

The impact seriously injured the man on the motorcycle.

Case summary states that Jones fled from the scene and hid her vehicle from discovery.

She was subsequently indicted for failure to stop and to exchange information after an accident and for tampering with evidence.

In exchange for her plea of guilty to the failure to stop, the state dismissed the other charge.

At her sentencing hearing, Jones stated that she left the scene because she did not have a valid driver’s license or insurance and she apologized for her actions.

Despite there being no evidence that she was intoxicated, the trial judge stated that, after 15 years on the job, he knew “a lot of people leave the scene of an accident because they’re on drugs or they’re under the influence of alcohol.”

The trial court went on to state that Jones had caused severe injuries to the victim, including a fractured hip, a dislocated knee and a ruptured spleen.

It then said that courts “generally cannot send somebody without a prior felony record to prison on a (fifth-degree) felony anymore” but, because Jones had caused “serious physical harm to another person while committing the offense” she was qualified to go to prison.

“My hands are not tied by the legislative branch of government,” the trial court stated before imposing a one-year prison term, three-year license suspension and ordering Jones to pay $2,000 in restitution.

After reviewing Jones’ case, the court of appeals found that the trial court was, in fact, bound by the legislature.

“R.C. 2929.13(B)(1)(a) provides that, for a non-violent, fifth-degree felony, like failure to stop, a trial court must impose a community control sanction of at least a year’s duration,” Presiding Judge Penelope Cunningham wrote for the court of appeals.

Cunningham noted that the trial court found that R.C. 2929.12(B)(1)(b)(ii), an exception to the rule, was applicable in Jones’ case.

Under that statute, a court may impose a term of imprisonment if it finds that “the offender caused physical harm to the victim while committing the offense.”

The state argued that every moment that the victim spent laying on the street after Jones left caused more physical harm.

“While that might be true, the record here is devoid of any testimony supporting that inference,” Cunningham wrote.

The reviewing court sided with Jones, who argued that the victim’s injuries were inflicted by the collision itself, not her punished offense of failure to stop.

The appellate panel also pointed out that there was no testimony from medical personnel about the impact that the delay in treatment that resulted from Jones’ departure from the scene may have had on the victim’s injuries.

“Only when the victim stated that he could not forgive Jones for leaving ‘not knowing if he was dead or dying,’ does the record come close to describing a harmful impact ‘caused’ by Jones ‘while’ failing to stop and exchange information,” Cunningham wrote. “The undoubted psychological terror experience by the victim, however, does not satisfy the definition of ‘physical harm’ provided by the General Assembly and employed in R.C. 2929.13(B)(1)(b)(ii).”

Concluding that Jones was ineligible to serve time in prison and that her sentence was contrary to law, Cunningham, joined by Judges Patrick Fischer and Sylvia Hendon, vacated the sentence imposed by the Hamilton County court and remanded the case for resentencing.

The case is cited State v. Jones, 2015-Ohio-1189.

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