Overview
- Shirilla’s new legal team filed a federal habeas corpus petition on July 28–29 seeking to overturn her 2023 bench‑trial convictions and obtain a new trial.
- The petition alleges trial‑level constitutional failures, including ineffective counsel and the wrongful exclusion of key defense evidence such as a grocer’s package delivery that could explain her presence at the crash scene.
- Lawyers also claim the defense failed to investigate a nervous‑system disorder that can cause fainting and did not pursue evidence that the victim may have grabbed the steering wheel before the car hit a wall.
- The filing challenges aspects of the victims’ forensic records, including alleged changes to coroner reports and testimony from a medical examiner who the petition says did not perform the autopsies personally.
- Shirilla remains incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women with parole eligibility in 2037, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected state review in June, a state post‑conviction filing was dismissed on a timing technicality and outcomes in federal court are uncertain.