Father appeals DUI convictions in deaths of three sons

COLUMBIA - No one disputes that Michael Batchelor should be in prison for getting drunk with his three sons and telling his eldest to drive a pickup truck - a decision that ultimately ended the boys' lives.

But Batchelor's attorney argued Tuesday that the South Carolina Supreme Court should throw out four felony drunken driving convictions because the father wasn't behind the wheel when the pickup slammed head-on into another car in July 2002 in North Augusta.

Batchelor's attorney, Robert Dudek, said the grand jury that indicted his client was incorrectly told Batchelor was driving the truck when it crashed, and while trial jurors heard the correct information, the case undermined the grand jury process.

If the convictions were overturned, some time could be cut from Batchelor's 40- year prison sentence, although prosecutors said they would correct the indictment and retry Batchelor on the same charges even though he wasn't driving.

''Why put that technical problem in a case so obvious?'' Chief Justice Jean Toal asked prosecutors. ''We have an official document from the grand jury misrepresenting the facts. What are we to do with that?''

As Assistant Attorney General Harold Coombs argued for the convictions, Justice Don Beatty interrupted and told him he was missing the point. ''The grand jury is not a formality,'' Beatty said.

Batchelor also was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and unlawful conduct toward a child. He is not appealing those convictions.

The oldest, unlicensed son who was driving, 15-year-old Ashton, died at the scene, while 13-year-old Brandon died the next day; 11-year-old Drew died four days after the crash.

At trial, three of the boys' friends who were seriously injured in the crash testified that Batchelor also drove them to buy marijuana and told them that if anything happened that day, not to blame him.

''I can't make the facts of this case look good,'' Batchelor's attorney said. ''Nobody can deny that what happened was tragic and unfortunate.''

The boys' mother said she didn't want to let her sons go with her ex-husband that day, but relented for what she thought was a fishing trip with their father, who had been absent in their lives for four years.

''I told Michael that day if they came back with as much as a mosquito bite, he'd regret it,'' said Joy Groomes Batchelor, 39, of North Augusta. ''But they never came back.''

She said the couple divorced in 1991, while she was pregnant with Drew. She wore a T-shirt in court Tuesday that displayed her three children and read: ''In Loving Memory of Our Angels.''

''He's killed my children. He needs to let it go,'' she said of her ex-husband. ''He needs to let my children rest in peace.''

Beatty said secretaries write indictments and could have made a mistake. He asked Dudek whether he had any proof the grand jury was intentionally misled.

''Your client doesn't dispute the facts. To be quite frank with you, he ought to be in jail,'' Beatty said.

Dudek acknowledged the grand jury proceedings were secret and there was no way to know exactly what they were told. But the 2004 indictment clearly says Batchelor was driving, he said.

The boys' mother said going through another trial would devastate her.

''It took so much out of me with the first trial, but I'd be there anytime there's anything going on that has to do my children and keeping him in prison,'' Groomes Batchelor said.