Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- A Valley woman who got a new trial stemming from a two-car collision two years ago also got a shot at less prison time Friday afternoon when the second jury convicted her of lesser charges.

Renee Ellison, a 24-year-old mother of three, was convicted of drunken driving, two counts of third-degree assault and reckless driving in Palmer Superior Court. She could face about five years in prison, her attorney said.

That's much less than her convictions the first time.

On April 18, the first jury took just 90 minutes to find Ellison guilty of drunken driving, first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and two third-degree assault charges. She was facing as much as 13 years in prison for the collision on June 18, 2006.

"It's significantly less prison time," defense attorney Bruce Brown said after Friday's verdict. A smiling Ellison was also clearly relieved.

In fact, before the defense rested Thursday, Brown asked Judge Beverly Cutler to dismiss the first- and second-degree assault charges because he didn't think they could be proven. Cutler denied the motion, but it was ultimately upheld by the jury's decision.

The second trial came about when Brown brought evidence to Cutler that the victim, Kimball Allred, had prior injuries that weren't heard of in court.

Allred suffered a back injury when Ellison's car plowed into Allred's taxi at the Palmer-Wasilla Highway intersection with the Seward Meridian Parkway. At the time, state troopers reported that Ellison's station wagon ran a red light and T-boned Allred's cab.

Ellison's blood-alcohol level was 0.15 after the wreck, nearly twice as high as the legal limit for drivers in Alaska.

A passenger in the cab, Jason Hamilton of Wasilla, suffered minor injuries. He said in court Thursday that he had a scraped face from an air bag and skinned knees. Those injuries brought the second count of third-degree assault in Friday's conviction.

During the new trial, Brown told the court that Allred, now 51, had complained of chronic back pain before the collision and suffered from degenerative disc disease. Because of the previous pain, it couldn't be proven that her prolonged suffering, a factor in first-degree assault, was the result of the wreck.

First-degree assault, one of the convictions in the first trial, carries a penalty of seven to 11 years in prison.

Third-degree assault sentences can be from no time in jail to two years. If Cutler determines the two counts should run consecutively, Ellison could get four years. Brown said the reckless driving count could result in a one-year sentence. The DUI is three days. But Ellison has already spent three months behind bars awaiting trial, so that will count against any time to which she is sentenced.

Ellison is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.

T.C. Mitchell can be reached at 352-6716.

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