Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Court of Appeals Delivers Some Ominous News for Karen Irby

Kingfish at Jackson Jambalaya was the first to suggest that Karen Irby could be indicted for depraved-heart murder in her vehicular homicide case. She was, indeed, indicted on that charge.

Yesterday, the Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed a life sentence on a conviction for depraved-heart murder -- in a vehicular homicide case called Nichols v. State.

That's not the first time the state appellate courts have applied Section 97-3-19(1)(b) to motor vehicle accident deaths. In Sanders v State, 942 So. 2d 156 (Miss. 2006), the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed a conviction for depraved heart murder arising from a fatal car crash.

And in White v State, 964 So. 2d 1181 (Miss. App. 2007), the Court of Appeals affirmed a conviction on that theory where the defendant ran down a police officer (who was on foot) while trying to flee the scene.

But it can't help Mrs. Irby that even super-lawyer Jim Waide, representing Nichols, couldn't prevent a vehicular homicide from resulting in a life sentence for murder -- even though the Court noted there was no evidence of intent to kill.

4 comments:

Kingfish said...

But Joe Holloman is the best defense lawyer out there. He's the dealmaker, he can make it go away. He's the Devil's Advocate lawyer: they never see him coming. He's got mad-dawg lawyer skillz.

Anonymous said...

You have too much faith in Holloman. He isn't that good. Karen Irby is going down. She desires it.

Anonymous said...

No lawyer is going to make what Karen Irby did driving drunk and speeding down Old Canton Road go away, and no deal is going to keep her out of jail for a very long time either.

Anonymous said...

I don't think she "desires" it!