The Indiana Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a man’s conviction and prison sentence for the deaths of seven people in a 1991 drunken-driving crash.
The appeals judges rejected Michael Flores’ arguments that he did not receive effective counsel at his trial and that the judge imposed an unreasonable sentence.
Flores was convicted of seven counts of driving while intoxicated resulting in the death of another person and seven counts of reckless homicide.
He was sentenced to 36 years in prison.
Police said Flores was going in excess of 90 m.p.h. when his Ford Escort rear-ended a van on U.S. Highway 41, just south of Cedar Lake in northwest Indiana, on Sept. 12, 1991.
Four Hanover Central High School students and two teachers going home from a volleyball game died in the fiery crash when the van rolled on its sliding side door, trapping the victims inside. Flores’ girlfriend, a passenger in his Escort, also died in the crash.
Police said Flores had a blood alcohol level of nearly 0.2 percent, double Indiana’s legal limit, and that he made no attempt to avoid the van.
