COURT UPHOLDS VERDICT IN 2009 CRASH NEAR DIA

The Colorado Supreme Court has reversed an appeals court decision that tossed out the conviction of a woman who caused an accident in 2009 that killed two women and injured a taxi driver on Peña Boulevard near Denver International Airport.

In a decision released Monday, the court affirmed Sandra L. Jacobson’s 2010 convictions for vehicular homicide in the deaths of Kate McClelland, 71, and Kathy Kransniewicz, 54.

Jacobson originally was convicted in April 2010 in the Jan. 28, 2009, fatal collision along Peña Boulevard that also injured cabdriver Nejmudean Abdusalam.

Jacobson was later sentenced to 36 years in prison.

In 2014, the Colorado Appeals Court ruled that Jacobson did not get a fair trial because the judge did not ask the jury members if they had seen a news report about her previous convictions. But the Colorado Supreme Court concluded the trial judge repeatedly admonished jurors to avoid newscasts and newspaper sites, saying, “It is the essence of one part of what we are doing here, which is to guarantee a fair trial.”