The Michigan Court of Appeals vacated the conviction in 2023, saying it was improperly based on the unsafe condition of his truck and not the manner in which he operated it.
The appeals court overturned the conviction, as it appeared it was the first time in Michigan someone was convicted of a high felony for driving a substandard vehicle.
The state Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision last Thursday overturned the conviction because it was based not on Otto's driving but the unsafe condition of the trailer-pulling dump truck Otto was driving that crashed into a vehicle at an intersection, causing a backhoe and the trailer tip onto a car in which Giana Giannini was the passenger.
Appeals Court judges Noah P. Hood and Elizabeth L. Gleicher in a 17-page opinion released Friday accuse prosecutors of 'riffing on equivocal language' of the law and call their theory 'novel,' the first time anyone in the state has been convicted of reckless driving under it.