Utah teenager Meagan Grunwald was improperly convicted of aggravated murder in the 2014 death of a sheriff’s deputy and she is entitled to a new trial, the Utah Supreme Court ruled Friday.
Justices pointed to mistakes they found in instructions given to jurors and said, “it is reasonably probable that the jury would not have convicted Ms. Grunwald of aggravated murder absent the jury instruction errors.”
The court reversed the conviction and remanded it to district court for a new trial, according to a copy of the decision obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.
Grunwald, now 23, was convicted of aggravated murder and slew of other felonies in connection with the death of Utah County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cory Wride. In March 2018, the Utah Court of Appeals ruled that five of those counts should be remanded for a new trial because of incorrect jury instructions, but it upheld her convictions for aggravated murder and aggravated robbery.
Attorneys for Grunwald appealed the aggravated murder decision to the state supreme court, leading to Friday’s ruling.
Grunwald was 17 years old on Jan. 30, 2014, when she drove her truck through two counties as her boyfriend, 27-year-old Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui, fired a gun out the back window at police officers and passing motorists.
Wride was killed that day, while Deputy Greg Sherwood was severely wounded. Garcia-Jauregui was fatally wounded later that day during a shootout with officers in Nephi.
A jury in 2015 found Grunwald criminally culpable for those crimes, and convicted her of first-degree felony aggravated murder and 10 other crimes. In the Court of Appeals decision, the appellate judges wrote that the jury instructions used at trial misstated the law of accomplice liability, which is the statute that allows accomplices to be charged and held equally accountable for crimes even if they are committed by another person.
After hearing about the Supreme Court’s decision, Wride’s widow, Nannette Wride-Zeeman, posted to Facebook, “I am so angry, betrayed and just bawling my eyes out!!”
She said that the ruling means there’s no justice in her late husband’s death and “sets a dangerous precedent for cop killers.”
Brent Jex, president of the Utah Fraternal Order of Police, also was outraged, calling the decision a “huge injustice.”
“The Utah FOP is calling for Utah County prosecutor David Leavitt to commit to trying this case again,” Jex said. “Cory Wride and Greg Sherwood deserve nothing less than the full weight of the Utah County Attorney’s Office behind securing a second conviction.”
An attorney for Grunwald did not immediately comment on the ruling Friday afternoon.
The Salt Lake Tribune will update this developing story.
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/32f6Fw9
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