A Texas judge today overturned a 7-year-old negligent homicide conviction against a woman whose boyfriend died when her Saturn Ion -- now known to have had a defective ignition switch -- crashed, her lawyer said.
Candice Anderson was cleared 10 years and nine days after the crash that killed 25-year-old Gene Mikale Erickson, who was riding in the passenger seat when the Ion drove off a rural county road and crashed head-on into a tree. Anderson, who police determined to be intoxicated by illegal drugs, pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and was sentenced to five years of probation.
But after General Motors recalled 2.6 million Ions, Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars for the ignition-switch problem in February and March, the prosecutors who charged Anderson and the state trooper who investigated the crash conceded that the new evidence means she likely was not to blame.
This morning, Van Zandt County District Judge Teresa Drum, who originally sentenced Anderson, agreed to throw out the conviction.
“She lives in a small town, and her community thought she murdered someone that was held in high regard,” Anderson’s lawyer, Bob Hilliard, told Automotive News. “She was called a murderer to her face.”
In addition to spending a decade thinking that she had killed her boyfriend, Anderson, who was 21 at the time of the crash, abandoned her ambitions of becoming a nurse because the felony conviction hindered her ability to apply for school and jobs, Hilliard said.
“It’s overwhelming; it’s a range of emotions,” Anderson told The New York Times after the ruling. “I’m elated. Things are upside down. Or, really, right-side up.”
Automotive News was first to report, in April, that Erickson was one of the 13 fatalities that GM had internally linked to the ignition-switch defect. GM’s internal investigation of the recall found that engineers had attributed the car’s failed airbags to a power loss in May 2007, before Anderson pleaded guilty.
In 2008, GM settled with Anderson, who suffered head injuries, a ruptured spleen and a broken femur, for $75,000. Most of that amount went to cover her legal bills and to Erickson’s two young daughters from a previous relationship, under the terms of her plea deal.
Anderson now stands to receive a much larger amount from the compensation fund GM established this year to pay people affected by the ignition-switch defect. Fund administrator Ken Feinberg has approved claims submitted by Anderson and on Erickson’s behalf, though Anderson is still weighing whether to accept the offer, Hilliard said.
Anyone who accepts a payout must agree to drop any legal claims against GM, though Anderson’s ability to sue GM is hindered by the automaker’s 2009 bankruptcy.
GM claims update
As of Friday, the fund had approved 35 death claims, each of which carries a minimum payout of $1 million, and 44 injury claims. Nearly 2,200 claims have been submitted, though about half were not accompanied by any documentation.
Feinberg and his staff are still reviewing 355 claims and have requested more information on 455 claims labeled “deficient.” He agreed last week to extend the application deadline by a month, to Jan. 31.
GM CEO Mary Barra had refused, when pressed during a Senate hearing in July and by reporters, to ask for Anderson to be pardoned. The automaker today said it had agreed to provide “technical information” about the crash to help the judge in her ruling. The company also acknowledged to the court that Anderson’s crash was included on a list of accidents “where the ignition switch may have contributed,” a spokesman said.
“Issues being discussed in this case are for local law enforcement and the courts to consider, and in a courtroom they are separate issues from the performance of the vehicle,” GM said in a statement.
“That's why we have taken a neutral position on Ms. Anderson’s case. It is appropriate for the court to determine the legal status of Ms. Anderson. It should be noted, the GM compensation program run by Kenneth Feinberg is set up to evaluate claims without consideration of contributory negligence.”
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