Opinion ID: 2520543
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Lack of an Intervening Cause Instruction

Text: We now turn to Auman's final argument on this issue, in which she contends that the trial court erred by not submitting an intervening cause instruction to the jury. Auman claims that Jaehnig may have been fleeing from police for reasons unforeseeable to her, such as because the Trans Am he was driving was stolen or because he had high levels of methamphetamines in his system, [17] and not because of the alleged burglary. Auman did not tender a traditional intervening cause instruction to the jury. However, her supplemental immediate flight instruction would have required the jury to consider whether Jaehnig committed any intervening acts which weakened the causal connection between the burglary and the death and whether the death was too dependent on another person's volitional act to have just bearing on [the] defendant's culpability. In People v. Calvaresi, we stated that to be liable for a homicide offense under Colorado law, death must be a natural and probable consequence of the [defendant's] unlawful act. 188 Colo. 277, 283, 534 P.2d 316, 319 (1975) (quoting 1 Wharton's Crim. Law & Pro. § 200, at 448 (12th ed.1957)). See also State v. Martin, 119 N.J. 2, 573 A.2d 1359, 1374 (1990) (following Model Penal Code, court concludes that probable consequence is one that is reasonably foreseeable). If an act of some other person, or intervening cause, breaks the causal connection between the defendant's unlawful acts and the victim's injury, then the defendant is relieved of liability. People v. Stewart, 55 P.3d 107, 121 (Colo.2002). As a threshold matter, a defendant is not entitled to an intervening cause instruction unless the following three conditions are met: first, a defendant must introduce competent evidence to show that the ultimate harm would not have occurred in the absence of the claimed intervening cause; second, a claimed intervening cause must be one that the defendant could not foresee; and third, such a cause must be one in which the defendant does not participate. Id. at 121; People v. Saavedra-Rodriguez, 971 P.2d 223, 228-29 (Colo.1998); Calvaresi, 188 Colo. at 283, 534 P.2d at 319. Initially, we turn to Saavedra-Rodriguez, where the defendant, who stabbed the victim in the chest, made an offer of proof that improper medical care contributed to the victim's death. 971 P.2d at 225. In that case, we held that the defendant was not entitled to an intervening cause instruction because he had not offered sufficient evidence to prove that the victim's death would not have occurred in the absence of the intervening cause, i.e., the improper medical care. Id. Similarly, Auman claimed that Jaehnig's actions  driving a stolen Trans Am and using methamphetamines  were intervening causes, but she failed to introduce any evidence to show that Officer VanderJagt's death would not have occurred absent these alleged intervening causes. Because Auman failed to satisfy one of the threshold requirements warranting an intervening cause instruction, the trial court did not commit reversible error in not submitting an intervening cause instruction to the jury. See also Stewart, 55 P.3d at 121 (holding defendant was not entitled to intervening cause instruction because claimed intervening cause did not occur between the unlawful act and the ultimate harm). Further, the two contributing causes alleged by Auman do not meet the threshold requirements to be deemed intervening causes because they occurred, or existed, prior to Auman's unlawful acts. Accordingly, there was no conduct which intervened to break the chain of causation between Auman's unlawful acts and Officer VanderJagt's death. Thus, we hold that the trial court did not commit reversible error in not submitting an intervening cause instruction to the jury.