Court Opinion

ID: 9592214
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:11:44.272535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:01.040714
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frantz
dissenting:
In an amended information, Daniels was charged with violating C.R.S. 1963, 40-2-10. It was alleged that “Don-*204aid Eugene Daniels, while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, did unlawfully and feloniously cause the death of one Joseph L. Carter by operating and driving a motor vehicle in a reckless, negligent and careless manner ...”
The sole argument presented by Daniels arises from the refusal of the trial court to submit instructions and forms of verdict to the jury covering the lesser included offenses of (1) involuntary manslaughter, (2) driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor, (3) reckless driving, and (4) careless driving.
C.R.S. 1963, 40-2-10, presents two alternatives concerning the manner of driving by one intoxicated: (1) driving a motor vehicle “in a reckless, negligent or careless manner” or (2) driving “with a wanton or reckless disregard of human life or safety.” In the present case the district attorney saw fit to charge Daniels with operating his vehicle in a reckless, negligent and careless manner, which in degree is substantially different from driving with a wanton or reckless disregard of human life or safety. “Reckless” in the company of words in the first alternative is not the recklessness contemplated by the second alternative. The latter comes within C.R.S. 1963, 13-5-31(1), which defines reckless driving as wanton or willful disregard for the safety of persons or property. The information, therefore, excludes the reckless and wanton failure required by Trujillo v. People, 133 Colo. 186, 292 P.2d 980, which is part and parcel of involuntary manslaughter.
The perimeter of the charge and of any lesser included offenses is determined by the information lodged against Daniels. Since the recklessness and wantonness required in a manslaughter charge are not included in the information, I concur with the majority opinion that manslaughter is not an included offense.
But I part company with the majority concerning its views on other asserted lesser included offenses. Driv*205ing while under the influence is, in and of itself, a crime in this state. C.R.S. 1963, 13-5-30. Careless driving, in and of itself, is also an offense in this state. C.R.S. 1963, 13-5-32.
In order to prove the guilt of Daniels as laid in the information, it is incumbent on the state to prove (1) that Daniels was under the influence of intoxicating liquor, (2) that he operated the vehicle while so under the influence in a reckless, negligent and careless manner, and (3) that death resulted therefrom. Under every conceivable definition of lesser included offenses, driving while under the influence and careless driving must be considered as elements of the greater offense, to-wit: causing death While under the influence, as defined in 40-2-10.
In People v. Futamata, 140 Colo. 233, 343 P.2d 1058, this court laid out the guidelines for determining what are lesser included offenses in this way:
' “The approved test is: ‘If the greater of two offenses includes all the legal and factual elements of the' lesser, the greater includes the lesser; but if the lesser offense requires the inclusion of some necessary element not so included in the greater offense, the lesser is not necessarily included in the greater.”
Because the majority rely heavily on a Utah decision, written in 1925, it becomes important to give heed to the California criterion for determining whether an offense embraces other offenses, as will hereinafter be made to appear. Time and again the appellate courts of California have stated the simple formula to be applied. One of these cases was People v. Marshall, 48 Cal.2d 394, 309 P.2d 456, in which the court declared that “if, in the commission of acts denounced by one statute, the offender must always violate another, the one offense is necessarily included in the other.”
Another test sometimes used is as follows:
“A prosecution and conviction or acquittal for any *206part of a single offense bars further prosecution for any act comprising the whole or any part of defendant’s misconduct pertaining to that identical delinquency.” State v. McLaughlin, 121 Kan. 693, 249 Pac. 612.
As suggested, the majority relies upon State v. Empey, 65 Utah 609, 239 Pac. 25, 44 A.L.R. 558, a case which, I submit, has no relevancy to our problem. In that case the defendant was convicted of a crime, and later tried and convicted of a greater offense. To better understand why State v. Empey has no bearing on this case, I call attention to a very recent case from the same state — State v. Brennan, 13 Utah 2d 195, 371 P.2d 27. The latter case is directly in point with our problem here, and supports conclusively my view.
In the Empey case it should be noted that on page 27 of the Pacific Reporter the court cites a number of California cases, and says that these cases construe California statutes which have been incorporated in the criminal code of Utah, and that “this court, however, is committed to the doctrine announced by the California cases to which reference has been made.”
The court continues:
“In State v. Cheeseman, 63 Utah, 138, 223 P. 762, where Mr. Justice Thurman, after referring to the cases in which the doctrine of when an acquittal of one offense is a bar to a prosecution for another, in speaking for this court (page 142 of the Utah Reports, 223 P. 764) says: ‘It may be said, however, with perfect safety, that within the doctrine of the authorities cited the acquittal of a person for one offense is no bar to the prosecution of another, unless it appears that some essential element of the second offense was necessarily adjudicated and determined in the offense of which he was acquitted.’ ”
In the Brennan case, Brennnan had been charged with violating their statute, which in part reads as follows:
“(a) It is unlawful and punishable as provided in subdivision (d) of this section for any person * * * un*207der the influence of intoxicating liquor * * * to drive * * * any vehicle within this state.
“(d) * * * provided that in the event that such defendant shall have inflicted a bodily injury upon another as a proximate result of having operated said vehicle in a reckless or negligent manner * * * he shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year and, in the discretion of the court, a fine of not more than $1,000.”
The court, over the objection of the state, dismissed the charge on the ground that there had been a failure to adequately prove reckless or negligent driving of the defendant. The state took the position that there was the lesser included offense, supported by evidence, of driving while under the influence of liquor. In our case, the defendant insists there is a lesser included offense.
Here is what the court said in the Brennan case:
“The rule as to when one offense is included in another is that the greater offense includes a lesser one when establishment of the greater would necessarily include proof of all of the elements necessary to prove the lesser. Conversely, it is only when the proof of the lesser offense requires some element not involved in the greater offense that the lesser would not be an included offense. Applying that rule here: it will be seen that subdivision (a) of the statute quoted above prohibits the driving of a motor vehicle under the influence of liquor as a separate offense, with a separate punishment as a misdemeanor as set forth in subdivision (d); and that it is necessarily included in the greater offense of driving while intoxicated and injuring another in a reckless or negligent manner, which is punishable as an indictable misdemeanor.
“In view of the fact that the evidence of intoxication recited above obviously would have been sufficient to prove a prima facie case of driving while intoxicated, we are unable to perceive why the trial court did not *208submit the case to the jury on that included offense. In refusing the state’s request to do so it committed error against the State.”
A statute making it an offense to drive while under the influence, and when so driving to do an unláwful act causing bodily injury to another, was treated in the same way by the Court of Appeals in California. There the court held that driving while under the influence (itself a statutory offense) was included in the statute adverted to in People v. Gossman, 95 Cal. App.2d 293, 212 P.2d 585.
Another case directly in point, decided in 1964, is that of State v. Heitter, (Del.) 203 A.2d 69. It is in accord with the case of State v. Brennan.
A combination of two crimes — driving while under the influence and careless driving — resulting in death is the offense with which we are dealing. The crime of driving while under the influence must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and the crime of careless driving must be proved to the same degree in order to make the resulting death a completed violation of the statute. Any other view of the statute breaks with the tests by which included offenses are considered part of the greater crime.