Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-9865, No. 5484.
May 3, 2009.
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Palmer, Eric Smith, Judge, Trial Court No. 3PA-05-2017 Cr.
Josie Garton, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Kenneth M. Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and Talis J. Colberg, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Bolger, Judges.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
On the night of January 6, 2003, Joseph O'Brien was driving north on the Parks Highway near Big Lake Road; he collided with a snow machine that was traveling south on O'Brien's side of the highway ( i.e., against the flow of traffic). The driver of the snow machine died as a result of this collision, and O'Brien was convicted of criminally negligent homicide following a jury trial.
The primary question presented in this appeal is whether O'Brien should have been permitted to introduce evidence that the driver of the snow machine was intoxicated at the time of the collision. (The autopsy showed that the driver's blood alcohol level at the time of his death was .092 percent — i.e., more than the legal limit for driving motor vehicles.)
See AS 28.35.030(a)(2).
The State's case against O'Brien rested on evidence that he was driving a vehicle that had faulty brakes and dim headlights, and that he was not using his defroster — thus allowing frost to accumulate on the inside of his windshield, obstructing his view of the road. The State conceded that the driver of the snow machine was on the wrong side of the highway. However, the State asserted that the snow machine was being driven along the shoulder of the road, and that O'Brien could have avoided the collision by simply continuing to drive in his lane of travel. Instead, O'Brien swerved to his right, onto the shoulder, where he collided with the snow machine.
O'Brien's defense was based on the assertion that the snow machine was not on the shoulder of the highway, but rather was coming straight at him in his lane of travel. O'Brien also asserted that the snow machine's headlight was bobbing up and down, blinding him. To avoid a collision, O'Brien steered his vehicle to his right ( i.e., onto the shoulder), but the snow machine steered in that direction too — and the two vehicles collided.
At the beginning of O'Brien's trial, the State asked the trial judge to bar the defense from introducing evidence of the snow machine driver's intoxication. The judge ultimately granted the State's request. The trial judge concluded that the snow machine driver's intoxication had no relevance to "whether the collision was a substantial factor in causing [the snow machine driver's] death". The judge reasoned that, even though the snow machine driver was intoxicated, this fact could not (as a legal matter) be so crucial to the chain of causation as to absolve O'Brien of culpability for the collision.
The fact that the victim of a homicide was negligent, and thereby contributed to causing their own death, is ordinarily not a defense (in and of itself) to a criminal charge arising from the homicide. However, regardless of whether the victim acted negligently, the victim's conduct can be relevant when assessing whether the defendant acted negligently, or whether the defendant's conduct was a proximate cause of the homicide.
State v. Malone, 819 P.2d 34, 36 (Alaska App. 1991).
Wren v. State, 577 P.2d 235, 238-39 (Alaska 1978).
In the present litigation, under the State's theory of the case, the trial judge's conclusion was correct: the snow machine driver's intoxication was not relevant to the issue of causation. In other words, if one assumes that (1) the snow machine was being driven along the shoulder of the highway, out of the path of O'Brien's vehicle, and (2) the collision occurred because O'Brien needlessly departed from his lane of travel and steered onto the shoulder (because he misjudged the snow machine's position, or for some other reason), then it would be irrelevant whether the snow machine driver was intoxicated.
But this version of events was disputed at trial. As we explained above, O'Brien asserted that the snow machine was not being driven on the shoulder of the highway. O'Brien contended that the snow machine was in the road, headed southbound ( i.e., the wrong way) within O'Brien's lane of travel, and that a collision appeared inevitable unless either O'Brien or the snow machine steered onto the shoulder — which, unfortunately, both drivers did at the same time.
The jury at O'Brien's trial had to decide whether there was a reasonable possibility that O'Brien's version of events was correct. The snow machine driver's intoxication was relevant to that determination. If the snow machine driver was intoxicated, this would make it more likely that the snow machine was being driven in the middle of the highway (as O'Brien claimed). Moreover, if the snow machine was being driven in the middle of the road, and if the snow machine driver was intoxicated, this would arguably make it more likely that the snow machine driver would have steered toward the shoulder of the highway at the same time that O'Brien was steering his vehicle in that same direction (again, as O'Brien claimed).
In other words, even though the snow machine driver's intoxication was not directly relevant to the issue of causation, the driver's intoxication was relevant to deciding whether the collision occurred in the manner suggested by O'Brien. A jury finding in O'Brien's favor on this issue would provide support for O'Brien's contention that he reacted in a reasonable manner to an imminent peril, and that the collision could not be attributed to the defects in his vehicle.
For these reasons, we conclude that the superior court committed error when the court barred O'Brien from introducing evidence of the snow machine driver's intoxication. (Given our resolution of this issue, we need not decide the other evidentiary issue raised in this appeal.)
The judgement of the superior court is REVERSED. O'Brien is entitled to a new trial.