Court Opinion

ID: 9462678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:47:06.749754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:42.917447
License: Public Domain

MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
With due respect I must dissent because in my view the deficiency in the trial judge’s instruction regarding causation did not reach constitutional dimensions entitling the petitioner to federal habeas relief. See Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 146, 94 S.Ct. 396, 400, 38 L.Ed.2d 368, 393 (1973); *500Schaefer v. Leone, 443 F.2d 182 (2d Cir. 1971).
There was ample evidence to support a finding by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants were guilty of murder in violation of N.Y.Penal Law § 125.25(2). The proof was clear that the defendants evidenced a depraved indifference to human life and that they recklessly engaged in conduct which not only created a grave risk of death to the victim, George Stafford, but was a direct cause of his death. See People v. Kibbe, 35 N.Y.2d 407, 362 N.Y.S.2d 848, 321 N.E.2d 773 (1974). On a dark, cold night (temperature 4°) the defendants placed their intoxicated victim into their automobile, drove away, robbed him and left him on a highway, with his boots off, his pants down or off, and stripped of eyeglasses he needed to be able to focus. They deserted him at a point about a quarter of a mile from the nearest shelter, a gasoline station located on the other side of the highway. It was readily foreseeable that in his condition Stafford might be struck and killed by a motorist, which is what happened.
The jury was well aware that it had to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants’ conduct was a direct cause of Stafford’s death and that death was not attributable solely to the motorist. In his summation the prosecutor argued repeatedly that although the immediate or direct cause of the victim’s death was the conduct of the motorist who struck him, the reckless conduct of the defendants was a substantial producing cause of his death because they were “bound to anticipate that he would be struck by a car, struck and killed by a car” and “these two defendants were aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk that death would result.” 1 In his summation one defense counsel conversely argued that the cause of death was not his client’s conduct but that of the motorist.
Against this background the trial judge instructed the jury that a person is guilty of murder in violation of § 125.25 when “under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes the death of another person.” (Emphasis added). Furthermore he instructed the jury that it could not consider the alternate crimes of manslaughter in the first degree or manslaughter in the second degree “unless you feel that these defendants or either of them, was guilty of causing the death of George Stafford recklessly.”
No exception was taken by defense counsel to the charge as thus given by the court, and no question was raised as to the sufficiency of the charge on defendants’ appeal to the Appellate Division, see People v. Kibbe, 41 A.D.2d 228, 342 N.Y.S.2d 386 (4th Dept. 1973). The adequacy of the instruction was first raised by the dissenting opin*501ion of one justice of the Fourth Department.
Although it might have been helpful to the jury to have a more definitive instruction on the element of causation, including an explanation of the concepts of proximate, superseding, and intervening causation, I cannot agree with the majority that such a detailed instruction was constitutionally required or that the failure to give it permitted “the jury to conclude that the issue was not before them.” We are not here dealing with such fundamental unfairness as failure to advise the jury that the defendant was presumed to be innocent or the substitution by the court in its instruction of a preponderanee-of-the-evidence for a reasonable doubt standard, see In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). Here the jury plainly was made aware by the summations of the necessity of finding that the defendants’ conduct was the cause of the victim’s death even though it may not have been the only cause. In these circumstances the court’s instruction was sufficient to enable the jury intelligently to go about its business. It was readily apparent to the jury, without detailed instructions on the subject, that it could not find the defendants guilty if death was attributable entirely to some intervening force which superseded the defendants’ recklessly indifferent conduct. As the New York Court of Appeals unanimously concluded in affirming the conviction, the evidence was overwhelming that the defendants’ conduct in depositing their intoxicated robbery victim on the highway in darkness and 4° weather, partially clothed and without eyeglasses, was the direct cause of his death.
“The defendants do not dispute the fact that their conduct evinced a depraved indifference to human life which created a grave risk of death, but rather they argue that it was just as likely that Stafford would be miraculously rescued by a good Samaritan. We cannot accept such an argument. There can be little doubt but that Stafford would have frozen to death in his state of undress had he remained on the shoulder of the road. The only alternative left to him was the highway, which in his condition, for one reason or another, clearly foreboded the probability of his resulting death.” 35 N.Y.2d at 407, 362 N.Y.S.2d at 852, 321 N.E.2d at 776.
I cannot subscribe to the idea that on such a record they were denied any constitutional right by the brevity of the court’s charge on causation. Their trial was a fair one.

. “There is one other aspect that I’d like to talk about on this first count, and also actually in regard to the second count. As I mentioned not only does the first count contain reference to and require proof of a depraved indifference to a human life, it proves that the defendant recklessly engaged in conduct which created a risk of death in that they caused the death of George Stafford. Now, I very well know, members of the jury, you know, that quite obviously the acts of both of these defendants were not the only the direct or the most preceding cause of his death. If I walked with one of you downtown, you know, and we went across one of the bridges and you couldn’t swim and I pushed you over and you drowned because you can’t swim, I suppose you can say, well, you drowned because you couldn’t swim. But of course, the fact is that I pushed you over. The same thing here. Sure, the death, the most immediate, the most preceding, the most direct cause of Mr. Stafford’s death was the motor vehicle, the truck driven by Mr. Blake that hit him right square, the middle of the grill, I think he said, that Mr. Stafford was seated or I forget how he described him, he’s not standing up, or at least he’s on his knees or he is sitting down with his hands up in the middle of the northbound lane. Sure, that’s the most direct cause of death. But how did he get there? Or to put it differently, would this man be dead had it not been for the acts of these two defendants? And I submit to you, members of the jury, that the acts of these two defendants did indeed cause the death of Mr. Stafford. He didn’t walk out there on East River Road. He was driven out there. His glasses were taken and his identification was taken and his pants were around his ankles.” (Tr. 1155-57).