A Stevensville woman's conviction for vehicular homicide in East Missoula has been overturned in U.S. District Court.
Katie Garding was found guilty in 2011 of striking and killing 25-year-old Bronson Parsons with her vehicle on New Year’s Day in 2008.
She was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen ruled on March 23, 2023, that Garding's conviction be thrown out due to ineffective counsel.
Judge Christensen also ruled the Department of Justice has until April 21, 2023, to appeal the judge's ruling or give notice of their intention to retry Garding.
Garding has been been on parole since 2021.
If no notice is given, Garding will not be retried and will be released from parole.
The Montana Innocence Project was instrumental in getting Garding's conviction overturned.
MTIP obtained evidence that the State’s theory violates the laws of physics, meaning it is impossible for Katie’s vehicle to have been the striking vehicle. This evidence was presented to Montana’s Fourth Judicial District Court in Katie’s Petition for Post Conviction Relief and later to the Montana Supreme Court when we appealed the district court’s denial of the petition.
Both courts found Streano was not ineffective when failing to hire an accident reconstruction expert but this failure was based on a strategic decision. Streano expressly disavowed this both in her testimony and in the affidavit she submitted to the courts, stating this was a “terrible oversight” and not strategy.
Click here to read the Montana Innocence Project's response to the court's ruling.
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