Opinion ID: 2549552
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Issue 8: Did the district court err in failing to provide a jury instruction on extraordinary intervening event?

Text: Kunellis claims the district court erred in refusing to give the jury an extraordinary intervening event instruction which he had requested. Specifically, he argues that Rogers' decision to drive the stolen truck against traffic and Sloan's blood alcohol concentration of .06% amounted to extraordinary intervening events absolving him of guilt because he had no control over their conduct. He notes the district court's obligation as stated in State v. Gholston, 272 Kan. 601, 615, 35 P.3d 868 (2001), cert. denied 536 U.S. 963 (2002): In a criminal action, a trial court must instruct the jury on the law applicable to the defendant's theories for which there is supporting evidence. When considering the refusal of the trial court to give a specific instruction, the evidence must be viewed by the appellate court in the light most favorable to the party requesting the instruction. [Citation omitted.] This standard cannot be reviewed in isolation, however. As noted, our standard of review is stated in State v. Mitchell, 269 Kan. 349, 355, 7 P.3d 1135 (2000): When reviewing challenges to jury instructions, we are required to consider all the instructions together, read as a whole, and not to isolate any one instruction. If the instructions properly and fairly state the law as applied to the facts of the case, and a jury could not reasonably have been misled by them, the instructions do not constitute reversible error even if they are in some way erroneous. [Citation omitted.] The district court instructed the jury in instruction No. 14 that [t]ime, distance, and the causal relationship between the underlying felony and the killing are factors to be considered in determining whether the killing was done in the commission of or in flight from the burglary or theft. (Emphasis added.) Kunellis requested an additional instruction stating: If you conclude that the killing did occur during the commission of the underlying felonies, you may find that the defendant was not responsible for the deaths only if you find that an extraordinary intervening event superseded the defendant's act and became the sole legal cause of death. In refusing the instruction, the court noted: The language that the Court has proposed here is straight from [ State v. ] Hearron [,228 Kan. 693, 696, 619 P.2d 1157 (1980)]. Language that the defendants have requested in addition to that really says nothing more than a combined application of this instruction and the charging instruction which requires that as element 2, the killing has to be done while in the commission or flight from the underlying felony. Instruction 14 simply advises the jury that they're to consider time, distance and the causal relationship as factors in considering whether the killing was done in the commission or flight from the burglary or the theft. These two instructions accomplish, I think, what the defendants have requested. And I think to add anything more to Instruction 14 is duplicative surplusage and added confusion rather than clarifying. Considering the instructions given as a whole, if the jury believed Rogers' or Sloan's actions were intervening causes, it could  and would  have found Kunellis not guilty. As mentioned, the jury was charged to consider [t]ime, distance, and the causal relationship between the underlying felony and the killing. (Emphasis added.) As a general rule, juries are presumed to have followed instructions given by the trial court. State v. Fulton, 269 Kan. 835, 842, 9 P.3d 18 (2000). The instructions given properly and fairly state the law as applied to the facts of this case and do not need the addition of Kunellis' requested instruction to accomplish that task. There is no real possibility that the denial of that requested instruction changed the outcome of the trial or would change the outcome of the retrial. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in refusing to give it. Finally, our resolution makes moot an additional issue presented by Kunellis on appeal, i.e., whether allegedly cumulative errors deprived him of his right to a fair trial. Reversed and remanded for new trial. ABBOTT, J., not participating. DAVID S. KNUDSON, J., assigned. [1]