Opinion ID: 1870305
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Public at Large

Text: We granted the defendant's application to decide whether the offense of reckless endangerment can be committed against the public at large. [1] Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-103 defines reckless endangerment: (a) A person commits an offense who recklessly engages in conduct which places or may place another person in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury. (b) When reckless endangerment is committed with a deadly weapon, the offense is a class E felony. Person is defined as the singular and the plural and means and includes any individual, firm, partnership, copartnership, association, corporation, governmental subdivision or agency, or other organization or other legal entity, or any agent or servant thereof. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-11-106(27). While the statute requires that a person be placed in imminent danger, imminent is not defined in the code. Black's Law Dictionary defines imminent as: Near at hand; mediate rather than immediate; close rather than touching; impending; on the point of happening; threatening; menacing; perilous. Something which is threatening to happen at once, something close at hand, something to happen upon the instant, close although not yet touching, and on the point of happening. Black's Law Dictionary 750 (6th ed.1990). Therefore, for the threat of death or serious bodily injury to be imminent, the person must be placed in a reasonable probability of danger as opposed to a mere possibility of danger. See State v. Fox, 947 S.W.2d 865, 866 (Tenn.Crim.App.1996). In State v. Fox , the Court of Criminal Appeals considered a defendant's discharge of a weapon into a tree and noted the importance of distinguishing the area in which a reasonable probability of harm exists from an area in which a mere possibility of harm exists. This Court has previously recognized the potentially `absurd' and `unreasonable' results that may arise from permitting prosecution of one discharging `a weapon under any circumstances where any other human being might possibly be present or where a stray bullet might possibly strike another person.' Id. (emphasis added). The court found that simply discharging a gun into the air absent a showing that someone was threatened did not constitute reckless endangerment. Id. The discharge must create an imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury to some person or class of persons. Id. We hold that the term zone of danger may be employed to define that area in which a reasonable probability exists that the defendant's conduct would place others in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury if others were present in that zone or area. We further hold that the term public at large may be used in an indictment for reckless endangerment to designate that class of persons occupying the zone of danger. Accordingly, the indictment in the case now before us was not erroneous for employing the term public at large. We will next examine the State's proof offered to establish the presence of an individual or group of individuals in the zone of danger.