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| © Patti Sapone/AP/Shutterstock Amy Locane |
By Gabrielle Chung, People
Former Melrose Place actress Amy Locane could be facing more time behind bars for her involvement in a fatal DWI car crash in 2010.
Locane, 48, will be sentenced a fourth time after her latest sentence was rejected by an appeals court on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.
The new ruling claimed Superior Court Judge Kevin Shanahan — who resentenced Locane in 2019 to five years after her first two convictions from another judge were overturned for being too short under minimum sentencing guidelines — employed “a methodology all his own” and ignored the appeals court's mandate on how aggravating and mitigating factors in the case should be weighed.
"In the process, he ignored our mandate on remand regarding certain aggravating and mitigating factors. Finding in this unique case that double jeopardy principles do not bar a final proceeding, we thus vacate the sentence and remand for a new sentence to be imposed," the appeals court stated in the ruling, according to Fox News.
Locane went to prison on in February 2013, serving nearly two and a half years of a three-year sentence on charges of vehicular homicide and assault that killed 60-year-old Helene Seeman and seriously injured Seeman’s husband, Fred, before her release.
Former Melrose Place actress Amy Locane could be facing more time behind bars for her involvement in a fatal DWI car crash in 2010.
Locane, 48, will be sentenced a fourth time after her latest sentence was rejected by an appeals court on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.
The new ruling claimed Superior Court Judge Kevin Shanahan — who resentenced Locane in 2019 to five years after her first two convictions from another judge were overturned for being too short under minimum sentencing guidelines — employed “a methodology all his own” and ignored the appeals court's mandate on how aggravating and mitigating factors in the case should be weighed.
"In the process, he ignored our mandate on remand regarding certain aggravating and mitigating factors. Finding in this unique case that double jeopardy principles do not bar a final proceeding, we thus vacate the sentence and remand for a new sentence to be imposed," the appeals court stated in the ruling, according to Fox News.
Locane went to prison on in February 2013, serving nearly two and a half years of a three-year sentence on charges of vehicular homicide and assault that killed 60-year-old Helene Seeman and seriously injured Seeman’s husband, Fred, before her release.
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Locane's attorney James Wronko tells PEOPLE that he does not agree with the appeals court's ruling and has already filed a motion to have the appellate panel disqualified.
"As far as we're concerned, it is unprecedented. I've never had a client — and I'm not aware of anybody — who has fully, completely finished their sentence and three years later they want to put them in prison. I'm also totally unaware of a situation where a judge sentences somebody in the statutory range and the state is allowed to appeal," he says.
"Amy has been out of prison for five years. She has been out of parole for two years. I don't understand why society, or the government, or the court would want to put her back in jail now," Wronko continues. "How do you explain to her two daughters that mommy may go back to jail five years after she's been released? It's kind of incredible."
In 2017, when Superior Court Judge Robert B. Reed refused to change his previous sentence despite an appeals court’s concerns that it was too lenient, Locane said she was "absolutely terrified" of the thought of receiving more prison time.
"I had worked so hard since 2010 on my sobriety, on adjusting to life in prison, on being released from prison, on acclimating to my children’s lives, and to parole that having to go back would seriously interrupt, if not destroy, any progress I had made in becoming human again,” she told NJ Advance Media in an interview.
At the time, Locane said that she wanted to focus on being a mom rather than returning to her acting career.
“First of all, I want to stay sober,” she said. “I want to help people not make the same mistake I made. I want to warn the youth about the dangers of drinking and driving. Everybody thinks it’s not going to happen to them, including myself.”
Read more at People
"As far as we're concerned, it is unprecedented. I've never had a client — and I'm not aware of anybody — who has fully, completely finished their sentence and three years later they want to put them in prison. I'm also totally unaware of a situation where a judge sentences somebody in the statutory range and the state is allowed to appeal," he says.
"Amy has been out of prison for five years. She has been out of parole for two years. I don't understand why society, or the government, or the court would want to put her back in jail now," Wronko continues. "How do you explain to her two daughters that mommy may go back to jail five years after she's been released? It's kind of incredible."
In 2017, when Superior Court Judge Robert B. Reed refused to change his previous sentence despite an appeals court’s concerns that it was too lenient, Locane said she was "absolutely terrified" of the thought of receiving more prison time.
"I had worked so hard since 2010 on my sobriety, on adjusting to life in prison, on being released from prison, on acclimating to my children’s lives, and to parole that having to go back would seriously interrupt, if not destroy, any progress I had made in becoming human again,” she told NJ Advance Media in an interview.
At the time, Locane said that she wanted to focus on being a mom rather than returning to her acting career.
“First of all, I want to stay sober,” she said. “I want to help people not make the same mistake I made. I want to warn the youth about the dangers of drinking and driving. Everybody thinks it’s not going to happen to them, including myself.”
Read more at People
