An appeals court has reversed the conviction of a woman who struck and killed a 7-year-old child in a crosswalk in DeKalb County as he walked to school, Channel 2 Action News reports.
The court ruled last week that a DeKalb State Court trial judge erred in his jury instructions in the case of Shirley Rita Ogilvie. The judge did not give jurors the option of finding the incident was an accident.
“She cried and cried, she was elated, but at the same time she wanted everyone to know that she still regrets that this terrible accident occurred,” Ogilvie’s attorney, Jackie Patterson, told Channel 2. “Every accident that takes place is not a crime.”
On Sept. 29, 2010, jurors found Ogilvie guilty of second-degree vehicular homicide and failure to yield to a pedestrian, both misdemeanors, in the death of Lameron Michael Dunmore, a second grader at Princeton Elementary School in south DeKalb County. (Court documents spell the child's first name Lameron, but prior media reports had his name as "Kameron.")
The woman was sentenced to a year in jail.
The child was killed Feb. 2, 2009 as he crossed South DeShon Road on his way to school. He was crossing in the presence of a crossing guard with a stop sign when a sport-utility vehicle driven by Ogilvie did not stop and struck the boy.
Ogilvie admitted at trial that she struck the boy in the crosswalk and had caused his death by failing to yield to him, but contended she could not stop in time because the child ran in front of her vehicle. The appeals court held that jurors should have been able to consider the woman's defense that the child's death was accidental.
DeKalb Solicitor General Sherry Boston met with staff for several hours Monday to talk about the case and what to do next, Channel 2 reported. They could ask the appeals court to reconsider its decision, or they could seek to re-try the case.
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