Summary
In Getts, the court held the trial court erred by excluding evidence of an intoxicated driver involved in a fatal accident.
Summary of this case from Mizell v. StateOpinion
Case No. 2D19-1100
04-07-2021
Michael GETTS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Christopher E. Cosden of Law Office of Christopher E. Cosden, Fort Myers, for Appellant. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Cynthia Richards, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
Christopher E. Cosden of Law Office of Christopher E. Cosden, Fort Myers, for Appellant.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Cynthia Richards, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
ATKINSON, Judge.
Michael Getts appeals his conviction for vehicular homicide. Because the trial court erroneously denied Getts his right to present evidence relevant to his defense, we reverse and remand for a new trial on the vehicular homicide charge.
Getts was charged with DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide, and DUI with damage to person or property following a crash on April 10, 2016. Following a jury trial, the jury convicted Getts of vehicular homicide and DUI with damage to person or property. On appeal, Getts only challenges his conviction for vehicular homicide.
At trial, the State presented the following evidence. On the night of April 10, 2016, Getts and his friend had ordered several bottles and pitchers of beer at a restaurant before leaving at 10:52 p.m. Getts drove his Kia sedan, and his friend sat in the passenger seat. To reach their intended destination, Getts drove on Pine Island Road, a divided highway with two lanes in each direction on either side of a median. The speed limit on Pine Island Road is 55 miles per hour. Getts was traveling in the right-hand lane.
The only eyewitness to the crash was riding his motorcycle on Pine Island Road at about 11:00 p.m. He was traveling in the opposite direction from Getts. He saw two vehicles on the opposite side of the road—Getts's Kia sedan in the right-hand lane and a white utility van in the left-hand lane, both traveling at about 45 miles per hour, in his estimation. The eyewitness explained that the impact occurred almost immediately after he first observed the vehicles. He saw the Kia sedan hit the back of the van, causing the van to flip and crash in the median and the Kia to go off the road and hit a tree on the right side of the road. The eyewitness testified that he stopped his motorcycle in the median and rendered assistance to the driver of the van and Getts's passenger. He testified that he was unable to remove Getts from the car because the driver's side of the Kia was too damaged. The eyewitness and other bystanders called 911.
After they arrived, the first responders removed Getts from the driver's seat of the Kia and rendered emergency aid to Getts, his passenger, and the driver of the van. Getts, his passenger, and the van driver were taken to the hospital. Getts's passenger passed away as the result of his injuries. An expert testified that Getts had a blood alcohol level of .209, more than twice the legal limit.
A Cape Coral Police Department traffic homicide investigator investigated the scene of the accident. He viewed the Kia and the van at their final resting positions and traced the tire marks back to the point of initial impact. He testified that the initial impact occurred in the left-hand lane. The investigator also analyzed data taken from the Kia's event data recorder (EDR), the "black box" of Getts's Kia. He testified that the EDR records data at half-second and millisecond intervals for five seconds before and after the triggering event, in this case, the point of impact between the Kia and the van. Based on the data from the EDR, the investigator testified that the Kia was traveling between 104 and 110 miles per hour in the seconds leading up to the crash, Getts did not use the brake before the impact, Getts did not provide any steering input prior to the impact, and there was an impact force on the left-hand side of the Kia.
After the State rested, Getts sought to present the testimony of the driver of the van. Because the trial court had granted the State's motion in limine to exclude the van driver's testimony prior to trial, Getts proffered the testimony. The van driver testified that he had been drinking the night of April 10, 2016, that he had pleaded guilty to DUI for his driving that night, and that he did not remember the crash itself or the events following the crash. He also testified that he saw the results of his blood alcohol level test and he recalled his blood alcohol level at the time of the crash was .203. The jury convicted Getts of vehicular homicide, and Getts was sentenced to 111 months and 5 days imprisonment.
"The standard of review of a trial court's ruling on a motion in limine is abuse of discretion." Edwards v. State, 39 So. 3d 447, 448 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010) (citing Dessaure v. State, 891 So. 2d 455, 466 (Fla. 2004) ). "However, the trial court's discretion is limited by the rules of evidence, and a trial court abuses its discretion if its ruling is based on an 'erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence.' " Id. (quoting McDuffie v. State, 970 So. 2d 312, 326 (Fla. 2007) ).
A criminal defendant "has a constitutional right to present a defense." Wagner v. State, 921 So. 2d 38, 40 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006) (citing Casseus v. State, 902 So. 2d 294 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005) ); see also Amend. VI, U.S. Const. ("In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."). In determining whether to exclude the defendant's evidence, the trial court must consider the relevance of the evidence; however, "[w]hat is relevant to show a reasonable doubt may differ from what is relevant to show the commission of the crime itself." Wagner, 921 So. 2d at 40 (citing Neiner v. State, 875 So. 2d 699, 700 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) ). "Where evidence tends in any way, even indirectly, to establish a reasonable doubt of [the] defendant's guilt, it is error to deny its admission." Id. (quoting Neiner, 875 So. 2d at 700 ).
Here, the State's theory of the case was that the initial crash occurred in the left lane and was caused by Getts moving from the right lane into the left lane. It supported its theory with the motorcycle driver's eyewitness account and the expert testimony of the investigator. Getts's theory of the case, however, was that the initial crash was caused by the van driver swerving out of the left lane into Getts's Kia in the right lane. Although the van driver could not recall the details of the crash, Getts sought to introduce his testimony that he had been impaired at the time of the crash so that the jury could infer from this evidence that the crash had occurred in the right lane. Getts argued that, by excluding the van driver's testimony about his intoxication, the trial court deprived Getts of the means of proving his defense theory.
The State argues the trial court did not err in excluding the van driver's testimony because Florida courts have consistently held that another's conduct "may only be asserted as a defense to vehicular homicide when that conduct could be viewed as the sole proximate cause of the accident which resulted in the [victim's] death." Reaves v. State, 979 So. 2d 1066, 1069 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008) (holding the victim and other driver's conduct at the time of the crash was not the sole proximate cause of the accident resulting in the victim's death (citing Union v. State, 642 So. 2d 91, 94 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) ); see, e.g., Miller v. State, 250 So. 3d 144, 145–46 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018) (holding the trial court did not err in excluding evidence that the victim was driving a motorcycle without an endorsement at the time of the accident); Filmon v. State, 336 So. 2d 586, 591 (Fla. 1976) (explaining that the negligence of the decedent or a third party is only a proper defense to manslaughter based on culpable negligence in operating a motor vehicle if the decedent or a third party's negligence was the sole proximate cause of the accident).
The State argues that the van driver's proffered testimony was irrelevant because it could not prove that the van driver's intoxication was the sole proximate cause of the crash in light of the State's evidence that the crash occurred in the left lane and the fact that the van driver could not remember the events immediately before the crash. However, exclusion of relevant evidence that another's negligence might have caused or contributed to an accident could violate the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to present a defense. See Wynkoop v. State, 14 So. 3d 1166, 1171 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009) (citing Donohue v. State, 801 So. 2d 124 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001) ) (holding that the trial court violated the Sixth Amendment by excluding relevant defense expert testimony regarding the design of a railroad crossing and how it may have contributed to the accident).
Here, the van driver's excluded testimony that he was intoxicated at the time of the accident is relevant to disproving that Getts caused the crash because the jury may infer that the van driver's impaired driving caused the accident instead. While evidence of the van driver's intoxication, without more, may be insufficient to establish that he caused the accident beyond a reasonable doubt, it is sufficient to introduce a reasonable doubt as to whether Getts caused the accident. See Wagner, 921 So. 2d at 40.
Citing Miller, the State argues that in light of the evidence and testimony it presented at trial, no reasonable jury could find that the van driver's impaired driving was the sole proximate cause of the accident. However, a jury is free to find evidence or testimony presented at trial to be reliable or to reject it as unreliable. See Fla. Std. Jury Instr. (Crim.) 3.9 ("It is up to you to decide what evidence is reliable. ... You may find some evidence not reliable, or less reliable than other evidence."). A reasonable jury could find some or all of the testimony presented by the eyewitness and the investigator to be unreliable, credit the van driver's testimony about his intoxication, and conclude that the van driver's impaired driving was the sole proximate cause of the crash. The jury might even find that the eyewitness's testimony supported Getts's theory that the accident happened in the right lane—where he observed Getts's vehicle traveling almost immediately before impact—instead of the State's theory that Getts veered into the lane in which the van was traveling.
In Miller, the appellate court found the trial court's exclusion of evidence that the victim was driving a motorcycle without an endorsement at the time of the accident was not erroneous because "no reasonable jury could conclude that the decedent's lack of a motorcycle endorsement was the sole proximate cause of the accident." See Miller, 250 So. 3d at 145–46. By contrast, in this case it is reasonable to acknowledge the possibility that the jury could determine that the van driver, heavily intoxicated at the time of the accident, caused the accident by veering into Getts's lane—and Getts, although heavily intoxicated as well, contributed nothing to the accident because he could not have reacted in time to avoid the collision. It is also quite possible that the jury could—perhaps considering the disparity in speed between the two drivers—find Getts responsible and the van driver blameless or that both were at fault, precluding Getts's defense that the van driver was the sole proximate cause.
A reasonable jury might conclude that the van driver's testimony is unreliable or its probative value is simply outweighed by the State's evidence. However, because it is possible the jury could reasonably have concluded that the van driver's intoxicated driving was the sole proximate cause of the accident, the evidence should not have been excluded. Compare Peel v. State, 291 So. 2d 226, 228–29 (Fla. 1st DCA 1974) (finding denial of instruction regarding the decedent's possible violation of a traffic law erroneous because, had the jury believed the defendant's version of events of which "there was some evidence in the record," it could have concluded that the decedent's negligence was the sole cause of the accident) with Brimmer v. State, 541 So. 2d 1307, 1308 (Fla. 4th DCA 1989) (affirming the denial of a requested instruction regarding the victim's traffic infraction because there was "no reasonable view of the evidence upon which a jury could conclude that the victim's act of failing to yield the right of way was the sole proximate cause of the accident").
It cannot be said that the jury, even after considering the excluded evidence, could not reasonably have concluded that someone or something other than the defendant's actions was the sole proximate cause of the accident. As such, the trial court erred by excluding evidence relevant to Getts's defense that the van driver was the sole proximate cause of the accident that resulted in the passenger's death. Thus, the trial court erred by excluding the van driver's testimony. We reverse and remand for a new trial on the vehicular homicide charge.
Reversed and remanded.
MORRIS and SMITH, JJ., Concur.