Nearly three years after a crash that killed a motorcyclist on Interstate 40, Jessie Hodge has pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide as part of a plea deal.
On July 22, the day her trial on charges of vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of an accident and following too closely was scheduled to begin, Hodge entered a guilty plea to the lesser charge in Knox County criminal court. As part of that plea deal she will receive one year on state probation. She will be sentenced Sept 20.
Knox County Assistant District Attorney Sean McDermott said Hodge will ask for judicial diversion, which allows defendants to avoid a criminal conviction and have the charges expunged after probation. Prosecutors will argue against that, he said.
Hodge, a resident of Lenoir City, is accused of killing 63-year-old Dwight Woods, a North Carolina resident who was riding his motorcycle on Interstate 40 near Pellissippi Parkway in Knoxville when he was struck from behind by Hodge's SUV, according to a Knoxville Police Department crash report.
Hodge, then 31, was driving the SUV that struck Woods' motorcycle Sept. 4, 2021, court records say. When a Knoxville Police Department officer arrived, the motorcycle was pinned against the front of the SUV.
Officers testified in 2021 that after the crash, Hodge ran away without attempting to call 911 to report the crash. Woods died at the scene.
The officer testified he recognized Hodge from her previous work as a Knox County Sheriff's Office corrections officer. Another KPD officer told the court Hodge refused to take a blood alcohol test after being brought back to the crash scene.
The Knoxville Police Department found no evidence of impairment.
"Ms. Hodge has accepted responsibility for the accident that unfortunately claimed the life of Dwight Woods. She submitted to a criminally negligent homicide plea with an agreed probation resolution, which was substantially less than what she had been charged with. Our sympathies go out to the Woods family," her attorney T. Scott Jones told Knox News.
An earlier version of this article mistakenly listed the wrong sentence for a defendant with no prior felony history.
Angela Dennis is the Knox News race, justice and equity reporter. Email angela.dennis@knoxnews.com.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Driver pleads guilty in 2021 Knoxville crash that killed motorcyclist
Most Popular
Comments / 0