LOS ANGELES (CN) — Rebecca Grossman, the wealthy wife of a plastic surgeon now serving 15 years in prison for hitting and killing two young boys with her car, urged a state appellate panel on Tuesday to overturn her second-degree murder conviction.
“This is an extremely difficult case, an absolutely tragic case,” Grossman’s attorney, Lara Gressley, told the three-judge panel of California’s Second Appellate District. “But tragedy does not imply malice. There is a difference between manslaughter and murder. The jury was not told where that line was.”
Much of Gressley’s argument centered on the judge’s instructions to the jury in 2024. To convict Grossman of murder, prosecutors had to prove she acted with “implied malice,” which means that she knew her actions — driving at excessive speeds after having margaritas and weaving between lanes — was “dangerous to human life.” Gressley argued that the judge did not clarify the meaning of that phrase, which is that there was a “high degree of probability that death will result.”…