Court Opinion

ID: 9713964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:27:30.716215+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:22.126884
License: Public Domain

BRODERICK, C. J.,
dissenting. Based upon the standard of review that we are obligated to apply, see State v. Littlefield, 152 N.H. 331, 350 (2005), this case, although tragic, is, in my view, not close. Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence supports findings that at approximately noon on Sunday, June 11, 2006, a partly cloudy, relatively warm and comfortable day, with good visibility, the defendant was driving his car eastbound on Route 49, a road that he had traveled hundreds of times before, at approximately 40 miles per hour. Traffic traveling in the opposite direction included, in order, a car driven by Carleton Vaughan, a motorcycle carrying Gary and Joyce Varden, a motorcycle carrying Rick and Claudia Huffman, and a car containing Christopher and Kristin Caplice. The motorcycles were traveling behind Vaughan’s vehicle in staggered positions with the Varden motorcycle positioned in the center of its lane and the Huffman motorcycle positioned fifty feet behind and to the right of the Varden motorcycle.
In Thornton, where Route 49 is a narrow, winding, two-lane highway, when the defendant’s car was approximately 250 feet in front of the motorcycles, Rick Huffman noticed that it began to come across the double yellow line. Carleton Vaughan described it as “coming kind of — way toward the yellow line,” requiring Vaughan to “crowd[] myself over to the right to avoid it because I thought he was going to come over the yellow line.” The defendant’s car then crossed the double yellow line and continued until it was halfway into the lane of oncoming traffic, at which time it hit the Varden motorcycle. The Varden motorcycle and the defendant’s car then collided with the Huffman motorcycle.
The defendant’s car was in the wrong lane for approximately two seconds before hitting the Varden motorcycle. In addition, Vaughan noticed the defendant’s car heading towards the centerline for some period of time prior to it actually crossing the line. Despite the fact that Vaughan steered his car to the right to avoid the defendant’s car, the defendant took no evasive action to avoid either Vaughan or the motorcycles behind him. Nor did the defendant apply his brakes prior to hitting the motorcycles. As a result of the defendant’s actions, Gary Varden, Joyce Varden and Claudia Huffman died, and Rick Huffman suffered serious bodily injury.
*751Under RSA 626:2, 11(d), a person acts “negligently with respect to a material element of an offense when he fails to become aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct.” RSA 626:2,11(d) specifies that “[t]he risk must be of such a nature and degree that his failure to become aware of it constitutes a gross deviation from the conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.” Whether the defendant failed to become aware of a “substantial and unjustifiable risk” is determined by an objective test, not by reference to the defendant’s subjective perception. State v. Ebinger, 135 N.H. 264, 265 (1992).
The majority correctly states that “the carelessness required for criminal negligence is appreciably more serious than that for ordinary civil negligence, and ... its seriousness [must] be apparent to anyone who shares the community’s general sense of right and wrong.” Littlefield, 152 N.H. at 351 (quotation and ellipsis omitted). In this case, the community has spoken — a jury of twelve has unanimously determined that the defendant’s conduct satisfies the test for criminal negligence. The trial judge, who was asked to set aside the verdict in his role as the “thirteenth juror,” which permits a trial judge to set aside even a verdict supported by sufficient evidence, see State v. Spinale, 156 N.H. 456, 465 (2007), declined to do so. I see no reason to doubt the wisdom of their collective judgment in this case.
Our case law supports the verdict. In State v. Pittera, 139 N.H. 257 (1994), the defendant was operating his motorboat on Lower Suncook Lake when the boat and its propeller struck and killed a young boy who was swimming in the lake. In affirming his conviction for negligent homicide, we emphasized the defendant’s conduct, not only in failing to perceive the risk, but also in causing it. Pittera, 139 N.H. at 260-61. We concluded that the jury could have found that a reasonable person, in the defendant’s place, would have seen the victim in the water and avoided hitting him. Id. at 261. Furthermore, the jury could have combined this finding with the evidence that the defendant was traveling rapidly through a cove area containing numerous docks and adjacent to a known swimming area while watching the shoreline, to conclude that his failure to become aware of the risk constituted a gross deviation from the conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation. Id.
Similarly, here the jury could have found that a reasonable person, in the defendant’s place, would have seen the motorcycles and avoided hitting them. While the majority contends that “at most,” the evidence shows that the defendant’s car “inexplicably” drifted over the double yellow line and into oncoming traffic for “no more than two seconds,” a reasonable jury could have found that the defendant’s inattention lasted substantially *752longer than two seconds and caused the accident. The evidence showed that before the defendant’s car actually crossed the double yellow line, it was moving towards the line at a sufficient rate to require Vaughan to drive his car to the right to avoid the defendant. Despite forcing Vaughan’s car to move out of his way, the defendant continued to cross the double yellow line and drive halfway into the oncoming lane until he collided with the motorcycles. At no point did the defendant take any evasive action or apply his brakes. Even assuming that driving in the wrong lane in the face of oncoming traffic for two seconds (which at 40 miles per hour would mean traveling in the wrong lane for approximately 40 yards) would not support the verdict in this case, the evidence shows that this case involves far more than an inexplicable two-second failure by the defendant to keep his car in his lane. A rational jury could easily conclude that the defendant was paying no attention to where his car was going for substantially longer than two seconds, despite driving at 40 miles per hour on a narrow, winding, two-lane road with oncoming traffic. Thus, the defendant engaged in blameworthy conduct creating or contributing to a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death or serious bodily injury. See Littlefield, 152 N.H. at 351.
Respectfully, the majority’s reliance upon the dissent in Utley v. State, 237 S.W.3d 27 (Ark. 2006), is misplaced. The majority quotes approvingly the dissent’s statement that “[w]hile wandering over the centerline is certainly very dangerous, it is an occurrence that, unfortunately, is commonly witnessed in everyday driving.” As the jury in this case undoubtedly concluded, driving halfway into the wrong lane into oncoming traffic is not something commonly witnessed in everyday driving. This was not a case of momentary inattention, such as might be caused by changing the radio or by a sneeze. The defendant’s sustained inattention, leading to his car crossing halfway into the wrong lane in the face of oncoming traffic, is an occurrence that I venture most drivers have not witnessed, and hope never to witness, in their lives.
Thus, in my judgment, the majority is simply incorrect when it characterizes this case as “only the defendant’s violation of a traffic law due to momentary inattention,” and its fear that affirming the jury’s verdict will result in “criminal liability [attaching] as a matter of law whenever a person dies in an accident caused by a driver who crosses the centerline, regardless of the circumstances” is unfounded. Juries will continue to perform their function of determining whether defendants have grossly deviated from the conduct that a reasonable person would observe. Because the evidence in this case, viewed in the light most favorable to the State, supports this jury’s determination, I respectfully dissent.