Mackenzie Shirilla From Netflix’s “The Crash” Asks Federal Judge to Toss Her Murder Convictions

Mackenzie Shirilla, the Ohio woman who gained renewed national attention due to the Netflix documentary “The Crash,” has asked a federal judge to vacate her murder convictions and grant her a new trial. The petition was filed this week at Ohio’s Northern District federal court.

According to TMZ, Shirilla is contesting almost everything in the case that landed her in jail for the 2022 crash that resulted in her boyfriend Dominic Russo, 20, and their friend Davion Flanagan, 19, dying. The petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed on Tuesday, July 28, after she hired new lawyers, as reported by Cleveland station WJW, which added that it was from the Cleveland criminal defense firm Marein & Bradley LLC.

According to Attorney Steven Bradley, there wasn’t sufficient evidence to move the case to adult court, considering that Shirilla was 17 when the accident occurred, and there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove that she intentionally killed the two passengers, as noted by TMZ. The petition further adds that her trial attorneys did not produce evidence that Russo grabbed the steering wheel before the car struck the building at around 100 mph.

According to Cleveland station WOIO, the petition states that text messages proving Russo grabbed the wheel during a driving incident weeks before the crash were not presented at trial, and that Shirilla suffered from postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a nervous system condition causing sudden fainting, and her attorneys failed to disclose that she had this condition to the court. Her lawyers maintain that no expert was called to explain how POTS could have caused her to faint while driving.

Furthermore, the filing contests the way the county medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, claiming that the rulings changed from accidental to homicide without the required legal procedures, and that the trial was unfair since a medical examiner testified about autopsies that he did not conduct himself, as reported by WOIO.

Shirilla was 17 and was set to graduate from Strongsville High School when the crash occurred on July 31, 2022. According to court records, the car crashed into a brick building at around 100 mph, and crash investigators discovered that there was no braking in the five seconds before the crash and the accelerator was depressed. She was found guilty in 2023 of 12 counts, including murder and possession of drugs and tools, and received two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life.

This petition follows a series of setbacks in state court. As reported by PEOPLE, the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal in an order signed by Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy on June 23, after declining to hear an appeal in May 2025 and dismissing another one filed the day after the deadline (which her lawyers blamed on a leap year miscalculation).

The prosecutors have been strongly pushing back. TMZ says that the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office has urged the state high court to deny reconsideration, arguing that Shirilla raised no new issue worthy of reconsideration.

According to PEOPLE, the federal case has been referred to Judge John Adams, and no court dates have been set yet. Shirilla is currently in custody at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville and will be eligible for parole in October 2037.