Opinion ID: 1346679
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Inconsistent Application of Crane's Holding

Text: 4. No later cases have bolstered Crane 's reasoning, nor do the dissents today make any effort to do so. Indeed, neither this Court nor the Court of Appeals has consistently applied Crane 's holding that the words he causes in the felony murder statute require the death to be caused directly by one of the parties to the underlying felony. 247 Ga. at 779, 279 S.E.2d 695 (footnote omitted). In nearly three decades, the Court has applied Crane wholeheartedly on just two occasions. The first came a year after Crane , when the Court reversed a felony murder conviction where a police officer killed a bystander during a shootout with the defendant. See Hill v. State, 250 Ga. 277, 278-280, 295 S.E.2d 518 (1982). [6] The second time was in Hyman v. State, 272 Ga. 492, 531 S.E.2d 708 (2000). Police came to Hyman's home looking for a murder suspect, and he falsely told them that the suspect was not there. When the police were allowed to search the house, the suspect shot and killed one of the officers. See id. at 493, 531 S.E.2d 708. Hyman was charged with murder while in the commission of the felony of making a false statement, but the Court held that the direct cause of the officer's death was the suspect, with whom Hyman was not acting in concert, and so under Crane his felony murder conviction was reversed. See 272 Ga. at 493, 531 S.E.2d 708. It is possible that the same result would have been reached under the proximate cause test, consideration of which the Hyman Court pretermitted. See id. In another case, however, the Court upheld the defendant's felony murder conviction based upon the death of a bystander killed by someone who was engaging in a gunfight with the defendant. See Smith v. State, 267 Ga. 372, 375-376, 477 S.E.2d 827 (1996). To reach that result, the Court had to redefine the Crane test as whether the death of the bystander was directly caused by a willing participant (rather than a co-party) in the gunfight. 267 Ga. at 375, 477 S.E.2d 827. The Court struggled to distinguish Crane and Hill as cases in which the homicides were not committed by either the defendant or someone acting in concert with him. 267 Ga. at 376, 477 S.E.2d 827. The shooter in Smith, however, was plainly one of the parties to the [defendant's] underlying felony, Crane, 247 Ga. at 779, 279 S.E.2d 695 (footnote omitted), and it is questionable whether someone charged with committing an aggravated assault against the defendant by shooting at him, see Smith, 267 Ga. at 372, n. 1, 477 S.E.2d 827, can really be said to be acting in concert with him, id. at 376, 477 S.E.2d 827. In other cases since Crane , we have upheld felony murder convictions where the death could hardly be said to have been caused directly by the defendant's acts. See McCoy v. State, 262 Ga. 699, 700, 425 S.E.2d 646, 647-48 (1993) (upholding felony murder conviction by finding that the death of a firefighter who fell into a well behind a burning house and died of asphyxiation was directly attributable to the defendant's felonious conduct in setting fire to the house); Durden, 250 Ga. at 329, 297 S.E.2d 237 (affirming felony murder conviction where a storeowner responding to a burglary died of a heart attack after exchanging shots with the defendant). In several other felony murder cases, we have simply ignored Crane and applied the proximate cause test. See, e.g., the post-1981 cases cited in footnote 2 above. Moreover, if Crane 's reasoning is solid and its holding deserving of precedential value, as Justice Thompson's dissent suggests, see Dissenting Op. at 769, then the term causes and the identical or substantially similar causation language used in Georgia's other homicide statutes should also be susceptible to the same directly causes versus indirectly causes ambiguity posited in Crane . And because all those statutes are also penal, the rule of lenity should require that the directly causes interpretation be applied in those contexts as well. But that has not happened. To the contrary, this Court and the Court of Appeals have continued to apply the traditional proximate cause standard in those situations. See, e.g., the post-1981 cases cited in footnotes 1 and 4 above. Crane has caused the most tension in vehicular homicide cases, which, like felony murder cases, sometimes involve deaths that are directly caused by innocent third parties acting as a result of the defendant's precipitating criminal acts. Thus, in Hill, this Court held that, under Crane , a defendant did not cause the death of another person and so was not guilty of felony murder when a police officer at whom the defendant was shooting shot back and killed an innocent bystander. See 250 Ga. at 280, 295 S.E.2d 518. Yet the Court of Appeals, in a case involving almost the same causation language and a similar fact pattern, held that a defendant was guilty of vehicular homicide when a police officer from whom he was illegally fleeing bumped his truck in an effort to stop it (much like an officer returning fire to stop an ongoing felony) and caused the truck to crash, killing an innocent bystander (a baby riding in the truck). See Pitts, 253 Ga.App. at 374, 559 S.E.2d 106. The Pitts court reached this conclusion by simply ignoring Crane and applying the usual proximate cause test. See id. at 374-375, 559 S.E.2d 106. Similarly, in Ponder v. State, 274 Ga.App. 93, 616 S.E.2d 857 (2005), the defendant, who was under the influence and recklessly fleeing the police, caused a pursuing police car to veer into oncoming traffic, where the police car collided with a Buick, killing the officer. See id. at 94-96, 616 S.E.2d 857. Like the homeowner who fired the fatal shot in Crane , the direct cause of the officer's death was the driver of the Buick. But the Court of Appeals, again without mention of Crane , upheld the conviction because the evidence supported the jury's finding that the defendant's criminal conduct was the proximate cause of the officer's death. See 274 Ga.App. at 95-96, 616 S.E.2d 857. In McGrath v. State, 277 Ga.App. 825, 627 S.E.2d 866 (2006), the chain of causation was even more indirect. McGrath, who was driving recklessly and under the influence on 1-85, crashed into a car driven by Kar. Both vehicles were wrecked, and McGrath and Kar were injured. Burroughs-Brown, a nurse, saw the wreck and stopped to assist. Another car driven by Ramirez, who could not see Burroughs-Brown until it was too late due to poor visibility, hit her. She was pinned briefly between Kar's and Ramirez's cars, but then she fell onto the highway, where two other vehicles ran over her. See id. at 826-827, 627 S.E.2d 866. Citing Crane , McGrath argued that he did not directly cause Burroughs-Brown's death, and faithful application of Crane 's reasoning would indeed have required reversal. But the Court of Appeals again upheld the conviction under the proximate cause test. See McGrath, 277 Ga.App. at 828-830, 627 S.E.2d 866. In a footnote, the court distinguished Crane on the ground that it involved the felony murder statute, which was subject to two interpretations and asserted that [s]uch is not the case here, since the vehicular homicide statute has been consistently interpreted and applied. Id. at 830 n. 4, 627 S.E.2d 866. The Court of Appeals distinguished Crane similarly in an earlier vehicular homicide case. See Johnson, 170 Ga.App. at 434, 317 S.E.2d 213 ( Crane is clearly inapposite to the instant case where there is no evidence of indirect causation and which involves construction of an entirely different statute.). Vehicular homicide and felony murder may be defined in entirely different statutes, in terms of their Code sections, but the relevant causation language is indistinguishable, compare OCGA § 40-6-393(a) ( Any person who, without malice aforethought, causes the death of another person through the violation of [various code sections] commits the offense of homicide by vehicle in the first degree.... (emphasis supplied)), with OCGA § 16-5-1(c) (A person also commits the offense of murder when, in the commission of a felony, he causes the death of another human being irrespective of malice.... (emphasis supplied)). If Crane is good law, then this Court's construction of the causation language in OCGA § 16-5-1(c) should be binding on the Court of Appeals when it interprets the virtually identical causation language in the vehicular homicide statute. See Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. VI., Sec. VI, Par. VI (The decisions of the Supreme Court shall bind all other courts as precedents.). Crane is, however, no longer good law.