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Teens, convicted in deaths for removing stop sign, win appeal

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LAKELAND, Florida (CNN) -- An appeals court Wednesday overturned the 1997 manslaughter convictions of three teen-agers who were accused of removing a stop sign from an intersection where three other teens were killed in a crash just hours later.

Nissa Baillie, Thomas Miller and Christopher Cole each had been sentenced to 15 years in state prison.

The case is believed to have been the first time the removal of a traffic sign led to a manslaughter conviction. The three were released on bail in October pending their appeal.

A three-judge panel for the 2nd District Court of Appeals in Florida reversed the convictions of all three teens and ordered new trials. Defense attorneys had argued their clients should get new trials because new witnesses have come forward and the original case was filled with misconduct by prosecutors.

Kevin Farr, Brian Hernandez and Randall White, all 18, were killed on February 7, 1996, when their white Camaro breezed through an intersection and into the path of a tractor trailer.

The youths had been out driving after a night of bowling. A stop sign was found lying on the roadside near the accident.

During the trial, Cole said he, Baillie, and Miller took down as many as 19 signs along the rural roads of Hillsborough County, about 20 miles east of Tampa, the night before the accident. But Cole told jurors he and his friends didn't touch the stop sign at the intersection where the fatal accident occurred.

The three teens were arrested after they threw stolen stop signs into a river, police said.

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