Rebecca Grossman asks appellate court to overturn murder conviction for running down two boys while drunk

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.”

“Driving through a residential neighborhood, through a pedestrian crosswalk at 73 miles per hour,” said Associate Justice Carl Moor, sounding skeptical, “having consumed at least one and a half drinks while engaged in racing behavior… Are you saying that that’s a close call whether or not that’s dangerous to human life?”

“Yes your honor,” replied Gressley, of Gressley and Donaldson, a firm specialized in DUI defense. “There is not a high degree of probability that even intoxicated driving results in a fatality.”

The crash occurred in 2020, shortly after the Covid lockdown had first been relaxed. At the time, Grossman was separated from her husband Peter, president of the renowned Grossman Burn Center, and was having drinks with her boyfriend, a former professional baseball pitcher named Scott Erickson. Both left the bar and were driving playfully to her house — racing, according to evidence presented during the trial, and weaving between lanes while driving at speeds of up to 81 miles an hour.

Meanwhile, Nancy Iskander was with three of her children: 11-year-old Mark, 8-year-old Jacob, and 5-year old Zachary. As she saw the SUVs hurtling down the street, Nancy pushed Zachary out of the way and dived. When she looked up, her two other sons had disappeared. They had both been hit and killed.

Grossman’s air bags went off, but she continued to drive for about a third of a mile, until her vehicle automatically shut off. A roadside assistance operator called her, and she appeared to not know what she had hit. When she was told she had hit two children, she sounded devastated.

“Ms. Grossman asked about the welfare of the children about 20 times,” Gressley told the appeals court. “These are not the actions of someone who has a conscious disregard to human life.”

Retired LA County Superior Court Judge Sanjay Kumar, sitting by designation, asked about Grossman’s comments in the hospital, when she told a nurse that if her car hadn’t been disabled, she would have been at home.

“That statement, it indicates to me, and to a reasonable person, she was indicating that she had no idea what she hit,” Gressley said.

“She knew it was a child,” Moor said, adding that the statement suggested a “lack of remorse.”

Gressley acknowledged the statement, if “looked at in a vacuum, does not look good,” but argued Grossman was in shock.

Deputy District Attorney Amanda Lopez argued there was substantial evidence Grossman “knew her conduct was dangerous to human life.”

“She lived just down the street, she would have been aware of the crosswalk,” Lopez said. “She knew people were out. Everyone would have known that driving under these circumstances in a recreational area after drinking would be dangerous to human life.”

The judges, including Justice Dorothy Kim, took the case under advisement and will issue a ruling later this year.

Grossman, now 62, could soon be back in court for the wrongful civil trial. The Iskanders are suing both her and Erikson, who faced a misdemeanor charge for reckless driving that was dismissed after he appeared in a public service announcement promoting safe driving. Though he did not appear as a witness, he was much spoken about, and a key part of Grossman’s defense was to argue that it was Erickson who struck the two boys with his car first, shortly before Grossman did.

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