Woman accused of highway deaths gets new attorney

Saturday, March 25, 2000 | 11:18 a.m.

The 21-year-old stripper accused of running over and killing six teen-agers as they picked up trash along Interstate 15 has retained a new attorney.

Las Vegas lawyer Ulrich Smith said he will represent Jessica Williams, of Littlefield, Ariz. Williams' family first retained Las Vegas attorney John Watkins, but on Thursday decided to change for undisclosed personal reasons, Smith said.

"This young girl has a lot of tremendous support from her family, and I believe this community will at some point and time be made aware that this was simply a horrible and tragic accident," Smith said.

Williams is accused of driving her minivan into the median of I-15 near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where her vehicle ran over six teens on a county work crew who were picking up trash Sunday. The district attorney's office plans to charge Williams with six counts of driving under the influence of a controlled substance, six counts of felony reckless driving and six counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Williams told the Nevada Highway Patrol she had smoked marijuana two hours before the accident, but Smith said it appears she simply fell asleep.

Smith, like Watkins, questioned the constitutionality of a law that dictates if a driver has at least two nanograms of marijuana byproducts in their system, they can be charged with driving under the influence of a controlled substance. He said he suspects that the question of whether marijuana impairs a motorist's judgment will be an important issue in the case.

Three lab tests revealed that Williams had 5.5, 5.1 and 4.8 nanograms of marijuana per milliliter of blood after the accident, the district attorney's office said Thursday.