Court Opinion

ID: 9532920
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:26:14.596971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:52.248196
License: Public Domain

WALSH, Justice,
with whom BERGER, Justice, joins, dissenting.
The majority concludes that the trial court erred: (i) in failing, sua sponte, to instruct the jury concerning the application of 11 Del. C. § 263 and (ii) in giving an incorrect instruction on unavoidable accident. Acknowledging that the defendant did not request a § 263 instruction, (nor object to its absence), while affirmatively seeking the unavoidable accident instruction, the majority nevertheless reverses the conviction on the basis of plain error. Because I believe the majority holding extends the doctrine of plain error to unacceptable limits and creates an unfortunate precedent, I respectfully dissent.
The facts surrounding this fatal accident are relatively uncomplicated. The State presented evidence that Bullock, who had been drinking and exceeding the speed limit, accelerated while approaching an intersection where a traffic device displayed a yellow warning signal. The victim was making an illegal left turn in the face of a red light when her vehicle was struck by Bullock’s vehicle. The State conceded that the decedent was partially at fault,63 but claimed that Bullock’s conduct was reckless and that such recklessness was a proximate cause of the accident. The defendant argued that the decedent’s conduct was the sole proximate cause of the accident. The jury was instructed on “but-for” causation, recklessness and criminal negligence. Specifically, the jury was instructed that in order to find the defendant guilty of manslaughter it must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that he “was aware of and consciously disregarded the risk that his conduct would cause death and also that the risk was so great that a reasonable person under the circumstances would have acted otherwise to avoid the risk.” The jury found Bullock guilty of manslaughter and implicit in that verdict was the determination that the actual result of his conduct was foreseeable and that Alleger’s conduct did not affect that foreseeability. The majority decision nullifies the verdict on the ground that the jury did not “receive proper, clear and complete instructions on reckless causation.” But the content of those instructions were never disputed at trial. The trial judge conferred with counsel, prior to argument to the jury for the purpose of receiving requests for specific instructions, as required by Super. Ct.Crim. R. 30.64 *1060Bullock’s counsel did not make a request for an instruction on any aspect of the elements of the offenses of either manslaughter or the lesser included offense of criminally negligent homicide. Defense counsel did request that the Court give an accident instruction in the following colloquy:
THE COURT: The jury may not buy into the accident defense, but the question is has enough evidence been adduced to warrant the giving of an accident instruction
MR. RADULSKI: I believe so, Your Honor. I don’t really think it matters how fast he was going. If she runs a red light, the jury could conclude that, hey, there’s no way he could have avoided that.
THE COURT: I think it does matter how fast he’s going, but I think we’ll hear about that in closing arguments. The slower the movement the more avoidable the accident.
The prosecutor commented that the court’s proposed instruction was “incredibly confusing” and offered a form of instruction on unavoidable accident that had been developed by a jury instruction study group of Superior Court practitioners. The trial judge, noting that the State’s proposed instruction was more appropriate for a motor vehicle type accident, inquired of defense counsel whether he had any objection to the State’s proposed instruction. Defense counsel stated that not only did he not have an objection but commented that it was “more attractive than the Court’s.” In reliance upon that representation, the trial court so instructed the jury. Neither the defendant nor the State thereafter raised an objection to the court’s jury instructions.
Following conviction, Bullock filed a “motion for judgment of acquittal/new trial” asserting that the jury’s verdict was against the weight of the evidence. Again, Bullock alleged no error in the court’s instruction to the jury nor sought any relief in that respect. To put the present claims of error in perspective, the appellant seeks the intervention of this Court for alleged errors in jury instruction that, contrary to the requirements of Super. Ct.Crim. R. 30, he either failed to request or affirmatively sought and never brought to the attention of the court at trial or in a post-trial motion for a new trial. Thus, we are being asked to review claims that the defendant had the opportunity to present, but did not, on three occasions to the trial judge: (i) at the instruction conference, (ii) before the jury deliberated and (iii) in a post-trial motion for a new trial. This Court’s definition of plain error was articulated in Wainwright v. State, Del.Supr., 504 A.2d 1096, 1100 (1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 869, 107 S.Ct. 236, 93 L.Ed.2d 161.65
Under the plain error standard of review, the error complained of must be so clearly prejudicial to substantial rights as to jeopardize the fairness and integrity of the trial process .... [T]he doctrine of plain error is limited to material defects which are apparent on the face of the record; which are basic, serious and fundamental in their character, and which clearly deprive an accused of a substantial right, or which clearly show manifest injustice.
*1061Since our holding in Wainwright, we have reserved the plain error standard to claims affecting substantial rights, i.e. of constitutional dimension, because only such claims can be said to “jeopardize the fairness and integrity of the trial process.” Such errors, though forfeited for failure to assert them at trial, are nevertheless reviewable because of their seriousness and demonstrated effect on the trial result. See, e.g., Smith v. State, Del.Supr., 647 A.2d 1083, 1086 (1994) (admissibility of statement in violation of confrontation clause reviewed under plain error standard despite absence of objection). There is a conceptual difference between reviewing a forfeited error and an error that has been waived. That distinction has been well formulated by the United States Supreme Court and implemented by subsequent federal decisions. In United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993), the Supreme Court considered the question of whether the presence of alternate jurors during jury deliberations, an admitted irregularity, could be reviewed under a plain error standard.66 In determining that the claimed error did not affect substantial rights, the court noted that the plain error standard is intended to correct errors that are forfeited, not those that are waived: “If a legal rule was violated during the district court proceedings, and if the defendant did not waive the rule, then there has been an ‘error’ within the meaning of Rule 52(b) despite the absence of a timely objection.” Id. at 733-34, 113 S.Ct. 1770. Decisions following Olano have made clear that only forfeited errors are reviewable for plain error. United States v. Perez, 9th Cir., 116 F.3d 840, 845 (1997); United States v. Lakich, 7th Cir., 23 F.3d 1203, 1207 (1994) (stating that “if there has been a valid waiver, there is no “error” for [the court] to correct”).
In cases involving a defendant’s failure to object to jury instructions, it has been held that the defendant’s approval or submission of the instruction constitutes a waiver. See United States v. Griffin, 7th Cir., 84 F.3d 912, 924 (1996) (stating that waiver must arise out of voluntary affirmative conduct and finding waiver where defendant’s attorney approved the claimed improper instruction); Lakich, 23 F.3d at 1207 (finding that submission of jury instruction by defendant’s counsel was insufficient to preserve issue and holding that counsel’s express agreement with the instruction constituted waiver); but see United States v. Bailey, 7th Cir., 227 F.3d 792 (2000) (finding no intentional relinquishment of right to object to jury instruction on appeal where defense counsel made an objection at trial to proposed instruction but argued on appeal the instruction was improper for reasons different from those previously cited).
This Court has also made clear that the failure of counsel to object to a jury instruction cannot be the basis for plain error as long as the jury instruction is a correct statement “of the substance of the law.” Grace v. State, Del.Supr., 658 A.2d 1011 (1995). In Grace, we noted that the fact that the court’s instruction “differed from the desired instruction is irrelevant” and emphasized that it was the defendant’s “responsibility to object to the instructions” and the failure to do so constitutes waiver. Id. at 1014. Again, in Chance v. State, Del.Supr., 685 A.2d 351, 360 (1996) this Court ruled that the omission of an accomplice liability instruction which *1062“should have” been included in the jury charge, but the absence of which was not raised at trial, was not plain error.
A practical consequence of today’s ruling will be that a trial judge attempting to craft jury instructions acceptable to the parties, and reflecting a correct statement of the law, will be at a serious disadvantage. Counsel’s acquiescence in proposed instructions and failure to object before the jury retires will not serve to insulate the result from a claim of plain error. Not only will Rule 30 become meaningless but its violation, as here, will provide the very basis for appeal. Reversing a trial judge on the basis of an issue he or she did not have an opportunity to consider should be limited to egregious errors, not those involving the omitted subtleties of jury instructions or the giving of an instruction in the precise form requested by counsel. As one court noted:
In our adversarial system, so long as the proceeding is conducted within the bounds of fundamental fairness, it is not the duty of the trial court to anticipate and evaluate every possible error that might be alleged. Rather, it is the role of counsel to bring such maters to the court’s attention.
United States v. Thornberg, 8th Cir., 844 F.2d 573, 575 (1988).
While arguably 11 Del. C. § 263 might have had a bearing on the result in this case had there been a genuine issue of transferred recklessness, its application here is, at best, tenuous. As the Commentary to § 263 makes clear, the concept of transferred recklessness is consistent with the theory of transferred intent embraced in § 262, which, in turn, finds support in earlier Delaware cases. The jury was instructed that a person acts recklessly with respect to death when he or she is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that death will result from his or her conduct. Bullock did not claim at trial that the actual result in his situation was “outside” the risk of which he was aware. He thus cannot demonstrate that his substantial rights were prejudiced by the trial court’s failure, sua sponte, to instruct the jury pursuant to 11 Del. C. § 263.
I recognize that there may be unusual situations where the absence of a constitutionally-required portion of a jury instruction cannot be deemed as waived by counsel’s action or inaction. But the remedy for such egregious error may be a claim of plain error in a direct appeal or a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under Super. CtCrim. R. 61. An expansive application of the doctrine of plain error, however, to accommodate arguably insufficient jury instructions, as is this case, is not the answer. Accordingly, I dissent.

. In his jury summation, the prosecutor commented: "Without doubt in this particular case you cannot deny, the State concedes, that Jennifer Alleger was partially a cause of her own death. The fact that she pulled in front of him, that helped to cause her death.” (A-35)

. Rule 30. Instructions.
At the close of the evidence or at such earlier time during the trial as the court reasonably directs, any party may file written requests that the court instruct the jury on the law as set forth in the requests. At the same time copies of such requests shall be furnished to all parties. The court shall inform counsel of its proposed action upon the requests prior to their arguments to the jury. The court may instruct the jury before or after the arguments are completed or at both times. All instructions shall be given by the court orally. In capital cases the court shall, and in other cases the court may, give the jury a copy of the instructions for use during deliberations. No party may assign as error any portion of the charge or omission therefrom unless that patty objects thereto before or at a time set by the court immediately after the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which that party objects and the grounds of the objection. Opportunity shall be given to make the objection out of the hearing of the jury and, on the request of any party, out of the presence of the juiy. (emphasis supplied)

. The majority cites Wainwright as authority for its holding that “an improper jury instruction may amount to plain error despite a defendant’s acceptance of it.” Wainwright, of course, did not involve a claim of plain error directed to jury instructions but to the admissibility of the defendant's incriminating statement secured in violation of constitutional safeguards announced in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) and Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981).

. The federal plain error standard, a limitation on the reviewing authority of the federal courts of appeals, is found in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) which provides: “Plain error or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court.” Delaware's statutory counterpart is substantially the same as the federal rule. See Supr. Ct. Crim. R. 52(b).