New Williams writ filed in federal court

Jace Radke

Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2004 | 9:05 a.m.

Attorneys for Jessica Williams have filed a second petition for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court, saying she should be released from prison because her constitutional rights allegedly were violated during her trial.

Williams was found guilty of driving under the influence of a controlled substance when she hit and killed six teenage members of a cleanup crew on Interstate 15 in March 2000.

The latest petition raises the issues that Williams' attorney, John Watkins, unsuccessfully argued before the Nevada Supreme Court in an effort to get a new trial. Among the claims made in the petition are that Williams' 14th Amendment rights of due process were violated when the failure to refrigerate her blood sample prevented her from obtaining a second test of the sample.

The petition also states that she was constitutionally entitled to a new trial because the marijuana metabolite (carboxlic acid) found in her blood is not listed in Nevada drug statutes.

It goes on to allege that a toxicologist falsely testified that she analyzed Williams' blood, and that then-District Judge Michael Douglas was wrong in refusing to hear a defense motion to suppress the blood evidence after it was learned that the blood sample wasn't preserved.

A previous petition filed by Watkins in federal court, alleged that Williams was exposed to double jeopardy during her trial when the jury found her not guilty of driving under the influence of marijuana, and then delivered a guilty verdict for driving with marijuana metabolite in her blood.

U.S. District Judge Philip Pro denied the double jeopardy argument, and Watkins has since appealed the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals where it is pending.

Williams was convicted in 2001 and was sentenced to 18 to 48 years in prison.

Williams has maintained that although she had used marijuana before the accident, she was not impaired when her minivan, traveling about 75 mph, went off Interstate 15 and plowed into the teens, who were part of a juvenile detention crew cleaning up the side of the freeway.

Court documents state that Williams was returning to Las Vegas after an all-night party at the Valley of Fire, when she struck the teens on March 19, 2000.06