Court Opinion

ID: 9542755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:38:14.48276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:52.795948
License: Public Domain

NESBETT, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent from the majority’s holding that a new trial must be had on the charge that appellant
* * * failed to remain at the scene of this Accident and further failed to render to Kenneth Klosowski, an injured person, reasonable assistance, (emphasis furnished)
The majority believes that appellant’s case may have suffered prejudice because the jury may have been confused by the above wording of the complaint which con-junctively stated two offenses in one count.
In my opinion appellant, if anything, received an advantage from the wording of the complaint and the state labored under a disadvantage. Technically, because of the conjunctive statement of the offenses, the state was required to prove both segments of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt in order to obtain a verdict of guilty on Count II. Actually, as will be pointed out later, it is not likely that the jury even remembered the wording of the complaint when they retired to deliberate.
It seems entirely unlikely that the jury was confused in any event. The state’s evidence that appellant ran away from the scene of the crash and left his injured and bleeding passenger in the damaged automobile was uncontradicted. Appellant’s explanations went to the heart of both charges and were that he left the scene because he had to answer an urgent call of nature and that he did not believe his passenger was injured. It is obvious from its verdict that the jury disbelieved appellant’s explanations, or did not consider them a sufficient justification, or it would have found him not guilty. Under these circumstances there was no reason for the jury to be confused and it had no alternative but to consider and apply the uncontradicted testimony of the state’s witnesses. Its verdicts seems to me to be a clear indication that this is exactly what it did.
As the majority points out, the general rule is that in the absence of a showing that a substantial right was prejudiced, a judgment of conviction will not be disturbed becausfe of- a duplicitous count in a complaint or indictment. Yet, even though appellant, who was represented by able counsel, made no objection to the form of the complaint at any time during either of the two trials had below, has not designated duplicity as a point on appeal and has shown no prejudice in his brief, the majority has presumed prejudice on a state of facts which will not support such a presumption.
The majority fears that the “jury’s verdict may have been premised upon improp-<er considerations” in that “Some jurors might have believed that appellant Drahosh failed to render reasonable assistance, others might have concluded only that he failed to remain at the scene, yet there remains the possibility that there was no unanimity as to either * * * ”
In my opinion these fears and doubts are not realistic. The uncontradicted evidence is that appellant not only did not *51render “reasonable assistance”, but that he left the scene without rendering any assistance whatever. His justification was that he did not think his passenger was injured. Nor is there any basis for the fear that “others might have concluded only that he failed to remain at the scene”. All of the testimony, including appellant’s, was that he did not remain at the scene. The final doubt that “there remains the possibility that there was no unanimity as to either” has no sound basis in the facts. There is no reason to presume this. There is every reason to presume that the jurors acted logically and applied the uncontra-dicted evidence of the passenger’s injury, and appellant’s hasty departure from the scene, to both charges if, in fact, they even remembered that there were conjunctively worded charges in Count II.
Actually, the trial judge did not give the complaint to the jury, so they were never confronted in writing with the con-junctively worded charges. In addition, the form verdict given to them when they retired to deliberate did not conjunctively state two charges. It stated the charge as “Leaving scene of an accident”. The returned verdict read:
We, the Jury, duly empaneled and sworn to try in the above-entitled cause, do find the defendant guilty as charged of the crime of Ct II Leaving scene of an accident. (Emphasis furnished.)
In the judgment and sentence, Count II was only entitled “Leaving scene of an accident”. The foregoing facts are realistic additional reasons for not presuming prejudice and for considering the conjunctively worded complaint as harmless error.
The majority cites and relies on People v. Scofield.1 This case is not authority for the majority’s position in my opinion. In its opinion the court clearly states that if charges are conjunctively stated, “the evidence in such case must be sufficient to support a conviction on each and every of the separate offenses so conjunctively charged”. In the case before us the uncon-tradicted evidence was sufficient to support a conviction on both charges, aside from the question of whether the jury even remembered that the complaint was con-junctively worded.
In my opinion it is a waste of state funds to order a third trial on a charge that has already gone before a jury twice with verdicts of guilty returned in each case.

. 203 Cal. 703, 265 P. 914 (1928).