RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Virginia’s Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a woman sentenced to 22 years in prison for fatally running over a friend with her SUV.
Forty-four-year-old Sarah Flanders of Virginia Beach was sentenced in 2017 after being convicted of second-degree felony murder and felony hit-and-run in the 2014 death of 47-year-old Richard Pentz.
Pentz was run over two days after police responded to an argument between the two.
Flanders argued that the evidence was insufficient to support her felony-homicide conviction.
But the Supreme Court earlier this month agreed with an appeals court that because it is possible for felony hit-and-run to be committed with malice, the hit-and-run can serve as a predicate offense for felony homicide.
Court records show that before killing Pentz, Flanders had been convicted previously for hit-and-run and other crimes.
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