Could the Ohio Supreme Court reverse decision on ‘The Crash’ driver Mackenzie Shirilla?

Just weeks after Netflix’s The Crash became the platform’s No. 1 film, Mackenzie Shirilla’s attorneys are asking the Ohio Supreme Court to take another look at her appeal.

Shirilla’s legal team has filed a motion asking the state’s highest court to reconsider its June decision declining to hear her post-conviction appeal.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled June 23 that Shirilla’s petition was filed too late and that the trial court did not have the authority to excuse the delay.

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Now, her attorneys argue the filing deadlines were confusing and inconsistent. According to court filings, the original legal team missed the deadline by one day after failing to account for 2024 being a leap year. They also contend there was confusion over when the one-year filing period should have begun because additional trial transcripts were filed after the main trial record.

Under Ohio law, defendants generally have 365 days after trial transcripts are filed to seek post-conviction relief. Prosecutors argued Shirilla’s deadline expired on Oct. 23, 2024, but the petition wasn’t filed until Oct. 24.

Shirilla, now 21, was convicted in 2023 of murdering her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, 20, and their friend, Davion Flanagan, 19, after prosecutors argued she intentionally drove her SUV nearly 100 mph into a brick wall in Strongsville in July 2022 without braking.

Prosecutors relied on surveillance video, crash reconstruction, and data from the SUV’s event data recorder – often referred to as the vehicle’s “black box” – which showed the vehicle accelerated to nearly 100 mph before impact without evidence of braking.

She was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after serving 15 years. 614NOW reviewed court records which show her first parole hearing is scheduled for 2037.

The Crash continues to draw widespread attention. The documentary features courtroom footage, police body-camera video, interviews with the victims’ families and Shirilla’s first prison interview, revisiting one of Ohio’s most closely watched criminal cases in recent years.

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