Court Opinion

ID: 9731787
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:58:10.365012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:21.039029
License: Public Domain

DUFRESNE, Justice
(concurring in part).
The defendant, Lester Grant, was indicted and convicted under 29 M.R.S.A. § 1315, of the crime of reckless homicide following the death of another in an automobile accident. The State claimed that the defendant was the operator of a truck in which the person killed was a passenger, while the defendant asserted on the stand that at the time of the accident the deceased was the driver. The case is before us on appeal, which must be sustained.
The indictment upon which the petit jury returned a verdict of guilty of the offense of reckless homicide against the defendant has been incorporated in the majority opinion and need not be restated. Before trial the defendant filed with the Court a motion entitled “motion for dismissal” which sought relief as follows: 1) dismissal of the indictment under Rule 12(b)(2), M.R.Crim.P., on the grounds that the indictment failed to set forth and charge a crime punishable by law, and to fairly set forth with sufficient clarity the act or acts of recklessness with which the defendant was charged so as to enable him to fairly prepare a defense thereto; and 2) in the alternative, amendment of the indictment under Rule 7(d), M.R.Crim.P., by striking therefrom on the ground of sur-plusage the clause therein “after having consumed a certain quantity of intoxicating liquor”, and the language describing the motor vehicle as being “uninspected and unregistered.” The Court denied relief, except for causing to be stricken from the indictment the referehce terms “uninspect-ed” and “unregistered”, which labels the Grand Jury had affixed to the motor vehicle involved.
At trial, defendant’s counsel protected his client’s rights by objecting seasonably to evidence of witnesses which tended to prove the defendant was under the influence of intoxicating liquors during the operation of the truck on October 9, 1966. Lieutenant Lawrence Joy, of the Brunswick Police Department, over defendant’s objection, was allowed to give his opinion to the jury that the defendant at the scene of the accident was under the influence of intoxicating liquor, the Court ruling that there was a sufficient allegation in the indictment to make the evidence germane. One Michael Boise, a junior high school student, again over objection, was permitted to testify that the defendant staggered out of his house, bumped against a tree prior to the fatal ride, could not keep his balance and walked funny. In motions for judgment of acquittal at the close of the State’s case and at the close of all the evidence, the defendant renewed his claim of error in the admission of the State’s evidence that he was under the influence of intoxicating liquor at the time of the accident, and advanced the same reason as previously stated, that the indictment did not specifically so charge him in particularizing the circumstances under which he operated on this fatal occasion. The defendant further objected to the Court’s instructions to the jury defining the terms “under the influence of intoxicating liquor” and especially to the introductory portion thereof as follows:
“In this case the State says that this defendant whom it says was operating the car was operating in reckless disregard of the safety of the Austin boy in the particulars which the State describes in the indictment. It says that the defendant drove the *237car after having consumed a quantity of intoxicating liquor. It says that the defendant at the time of the happening of the event was under the influence of' intoxicating liquor.” These same grievances were raised in his motion for new trial under Rule 33, M.R.Crim.P., which motion the Court denied. The issue has been preserved in the designation of points on appeal.
The pertinent provisions of the statute and constitution read:
29 M.R.S.A. § 1315: “Any person who operates a vehicle with reckless disregard for the safety of others and thereby causes the death of another person, when the death of such person results within one year, shall be guilty of the offense of reckless homicide. * * * ”
Maine Constitution — Article I, Section 6: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have a right * * * ;
“To demand the nature and cause of the accusation, and have a copy thereof; * * *»
The purpose of this constitutional guaranty is to secure to any defendant in a criminal pr.osecution such a reasonably particular statement of all the essential elements which constitute the intended offense as shall apprise him of the criminal act charged. State v. McClay, 1951, 146 Me. 104, 78 A.2d 347. This constitutional mandate is satisfied only if the indictment contains a plain, concise and definite recital of the essential facts constituting the intended offense as shall adequately inform an accused of reasonable and normal intelligence of the criminal act charged and the nature thereof, sufficiently enabling him to defend and, upon conviction or acquittal, to make use of the judgment as a basis of a plea of former jeopardy, should the occasion arise. Logan v. State, 1970, Me., 263 A.2d 266; State v. Bull, 1969, Me., 249 A. 2d 881; State v. Charette, 1963, 159 Me. 124, 188 A.2d 898.
Reckless homicide under 29 M.R.S.A. § 1315 is the crime of reckless driving with the superadded feature that the reckless driving caused the death of another within one year of the event. As in reckless driving, the essence of the offense of reckless homicide lies not in the act of operating a motor vehicle, but rather in the manner and circumstances of its operation. The particular manner of operation and the circumstances surrounding it determine whether the operation takes on a criminal aspect within the meaning of the law. State v. Houde, 1955, 150 Me. 469, 114 A.2d 366. The particulars of the motor vehicle operation constitute the essential factual ingredients of the crime of reckless homicide and must be stated in the indictment with that reasonable degree of fullness, certainty and precision which will reasonably inform the defendant and enable him to meet the exact charge against him. State v. Houde, supra; Carlson v. State, 1962, 158 Me. 15, 176 A.2d 844; State v. Munsey, 1916, 114 Me. 408, 96 A. 729; State v. Doran, 1904, 99 Me. 329, 331, 59 A. 440.
The instant indictment charged the defendant with a felony. As pointed out in State v. Child, 1962, 158 Me. 242, 182 A.2d 675, 17 A.L.R.3d 1275, “[ujnder common law, indictments could not be amended. Where it appeared that an indictment was insufficient, it was the practice to reconvene the Grand Jury that found the indictment for the purpose of amending it. It could be done in no other way.” See, State v. Blendt, 1956, Del., 10 Terry 528, 120 A.2d 321 at page 324. Legislation abrogating the common law rule, 15 M.R.S.A. § 754, and permitting amendments of indictments charging felonies in matters of form, was repealed by Public Laws, 1965, chapter 356, section 26. Rule 7(d) of the Maine Rules of Criminal Procedure became effective at the same time as the repeal statute on December 1, 1965 and controls the present situation. It provides that the court on motion of the defendant may strike surplusage from the indictment. Professor Glassman in his Commentary, *238Maine Practice, § 7.13, at page 84, indicates that the only amendments which are not permitted under the rule are those which amend matters of substance and change the nature of the offense charged. Irrelevant and immaterial allegations contained in an indictment may he stricken therefrom on the defendant’s motion on the ground of surplusage and thus an indictment may be amended as to matters of form and not of substance to protect the defendant against prejudicial averments.
The term “surplusage” in Rule 7 (d) must be construed in light of Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution of Maine which mandates that “[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital or infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except * * *.” All felonies which by statutory definition include every offense punishable by imprisonment in the State Prison are infamous crimes. IS M.R.S.A. § 451; State v. Vashon, 1924, 123 Me. 412, 123 A. 511. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides a similar privilege respecting federal prosecutions. This right of grand jury intervention by way of indictment or presentment to anyone accused of the commission of a felony, which existed under the English common law, was imbedded in our State Constitution and guarantees to every individual protection against oppressive and arbitrary action in the enforcement of the criminal law. When an indictment charging a felonious offense is amended in a matter of substance either by adding thereto or striking therefrom, the resultant amended indictment cannot be said to be the indictment which was found by the grand jury. If it lies within the province of a court or the prosecutor or both, even with the consent of the accused, to change by amendment averments of substance contained in an indictment, for any reason whatsoever, the constitutional privilege may be frittered away and its value reduced to naught. See, Ex parte Bain, 1887, 121 U.S. 1, 7 S.Ct. 781, 30 L.Ed. 849; Stirone v. United States, 1960, 361 U.S. 212, 80 S.Ct. 270, 4 L.Ed.2d 252; Annotation, 17 A.L.R.3d, Indictment — Amendment, section 7, pp. 1201-1203.
The issue presented by defendant’s motion to strike under Rule 7(d) is, whether the matter sought to be stricken constitutes mere surplusage, that is, mere form and nothing of substance. It is difficult in particular instances to determine whether certain averments are immaterial and unnecessary rather than of substance. The Justice below permitted the deletion of the references to the non-inspection and non-registration of the motor vehicle, and correctly so under the doctrine of Cobb v. Cumberland County Power and Light Company, 1918, 117 Me. 455, 104 A. 844, which holds that the violation of the registration statute of this State, and the same would be true of the violation of the inspection statute, has no causal connection with the happening of accidents. Whether the truck was unregistered and without a valid inspection sticker is immaterial to a charge of reckless driving resulting in death.
On the other hand, the Court below refused to remove the reference to intoxicating liquors. In this, there was no error as it was beyond the powers of the Court to amend the indictment in a matter of substance, even upon the defendant’s motion. The present indictment specifically charges the defendant with the operation of the vehicle at excessive speeds over and above the posted legal speed, its operation at such speeds on curve and grade in the highway, the swerving of the vehicle from the right to the left side of the way and finally the resulting loss of control which caused the vehicle to roll over and strike a tree off the right side of the highway. But the Grand Jury in particularizing these circumstantial factors of reckless driving underlying its accusation of reckless homicide circumscribed each stated specification of reckless conduct with the accusation “after having consumed a certain quantity of intoxicating liquor,” impregnating as it were *239the totality of the existing circumstances with the catalytic agent of intoxicating liquor as an integral cause of the wrongful operation of the vehicle culminating in death.
While immaterial averments may be rejected, there cannot be a rejection as sur-plusage of an averment which is descriptive of the identity of that which is legally essential to the charge and this includes those allegations which operate by way of description or limitation on that which is material. Joyce on Indictments, Section 263; Starkie on Evidence, Vol. 3, p. 1539. A descriptive averment in an indictment, even when made unnecessarily, is matter of substance and may not be amended. Such is an averment which describes, defines, qualifies, or limits a matter which is material. An amendment to an indictment which in effect changes the nature of the offense charged constitutes matter of substance. State v. McGraw, 1955, 140 W.Va. 547, 85 S.E.2d 849. See also, McDonald v. State, 1940, 138 Tex.Cr.R. 610, 137 S.W.2d 1046.
In Beale’s Criminal Pleadings & Practice, § 112, the author says:
“Whether an unnecessary allegation may be rejected as surplusage or must be proved as laid is not always easy to determine. If the allegation is an independent clause, it may always be rejected; if it is an adjectival phrase, or, at any rate, if it is a single adjective, and describes or qualifies a necessary part of the indictment, it cannot be separated from the word it modifies.”
In Mitchell v. Commonwealth, 1925, 141 Va. 541, 127 S.E. 368, the Court stated the rule to be as follows:
“If the unnecessary word or words inserted in the indictment describe, limit, or qualify the words which it was necessary to insert therein, then they are descriptive of the offense charged in the indictment and cannot be rejected as sur-plusage.”
Descriptive averments of the thing stolen in an indictment for larceny, even though unnecessary, are matters of substance and cannot be treated as surplusage. State v. Noble, 15 Me. 476; State v. Jackson, 1849, 30 Me. 29; Commonwealth v. Gavin, 1876, 121 Mass. 54. State v. Mayberry, 1859, 48 Me. 218, confirms the rule by citing, at page 237, that a particular averment which was not descriptive of the identity of the charge, or of any thing essential to it, could be rejected as surplusage. In the instant case, the intoxicating liquor averment served to qualify, modify and describe all the acts of reckless operation of the vehicle constituting the essential elements of the proffered charge of reckless homicide.
If the indictment had spelled out in legally sufficient language such as “while being under the influence of intoxicating liquor” the integrated setting of the alleged illegal operation instead of merely alleging “after having consumed a certain quantity of intoxicating liquor,” nobody would question the liquor averment as being substance and not surplusage. A substantive charge, even though insufficiently laid in an indictment as a matter of proper legal criminal pleading, can never be rejected as sur-plusage. This is part of our common law. Commonwealth v. Atwood, 1814, 11 Mass. 93.
The Grand Jury, as the indictment plainly shows on its face, bottomed the whole reckless operation of the vehicle upon the fact that the accused had consumed á certain quantity of intoxicating liquor. This gives rise to the reasonable inference that the defendant’s consumption of intoxicating liquor prior to the fatal ride was a substantial factor in the reckless operation and was a significant consideration underlying the Grand Jury’s finding of the indictment for reckless homicide. The overriding position given by the Grand Jury to the defendant’s consumption of intoxicating liquor on the face of the indictment effectively negates any idea that the matter is mere surplusage. There was no *240error in denying the defendant’s motion to strike.
Should the defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment for failure fairly to set forth with sufficient clarity the act or acts of recklessness with which he was charged, to wit, whether they were in fact, as distinguished from inference, due to alcoholic influence or impairment, have been granted? I believe so. A charge of reckless homicide which merely alleged that a defendant caused the death of another by operating a motor vehicle after having consumed a certain quantity of intoxicating liquor without more would be fatally defective for failure to inform the defendant of an essential fact from which the State intended to prove the ultimate fact of reckless driving and reckless homicide, to wit, operation while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or while the mental and physical faculties of the operator were impaired. It is no statutory offense in this State to operate a motor vehicle after having consumed a certain quantity of intoxicating liquor, unless the operator’s mental or physical faculties were impaired during operation because of his use of intoxicants. Operating after having consumed a certain quantity of intoxicating liquor, even though suggestive of it, is not equivalent to, nor synonymous with, operating while under the influence of or impairment by intoxicating liquor, and the Justice below was in error in his charge to the jury which equated the same. In so doing, the Court below amended the indictment in a matter of substance, in fact if not in law. This contravened our constitutional provision that no person shall be held to answer for an infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury. The Grand Jury was satisfied to charge Grant with reckless homicide upon his operation of the vehicle after having consumed a certain quantity of intoxicating liquor. But nobody can know that the Grand Jury would have been willing to charge Grant with reckless homicide in the absence of the liquor factor. The Constitution places that decision, in the Grand Jury and not in the Courts.
Since the defendant’s conviction is set aside, it is unnecessary to consider other points raised on appeal.
I would make the entry
Appeal sustained. Conviction set aside. Remanded for dismissal of indictment and resubmission of the case to any Grand Jury of the County of Cumberland. So ordered.
WEATHERBEE, J., authorizes me to say that he joins in this opinion.