The Rebecca Grossman case after the trial

A lot of Southern Californians followed this case through the trial and then mentally filed it away as convicted. But the appeal matters because it answers the question many people have after a high-profile verdict: did it hold up?

Grossman was convicted in February 2024 in the 2020 crash that killed brothers Mark and Jacob Iskander in Westlake Village. Prosecutors argued she was racing another driver and hit the boys while they were crossing in a marked crosswalk with their family. She was later sentenced to 15 years to life.

The part most people missed is that her appellate lawyers tried to attack the conviction on several fronts, including arguments about causation and trial error. In March 2026, a California appellate court rejected those challenges and upheld the convictions. Local coverage emphasized that the ruling also rejected the defense theory that another driver may have struck the boys first.

The aftermath then moved into a separate civil track. In June 2026, a Los Angeles jury awarded the Iskander family $176 million in wrongful-death and emotional-distress damages after finding Grossman and former Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson negligent. The civil case did not change Grossman's criminal conviction or sentence; it addressed financial liability in the family's lawsuit. AP reported that the judge would ultimately determine how much each defendant must pay, and that jurors still had to decide whether to award punitive damages.

That civil verdict is the kind of follow-up that can disappear after the criminal headlines fade. The criminal conviction survived appeal, and the family's civil case produced a major damages verdict, but the punitive-damages and collection questions were still not fully closed in the latest verified reporting.