Court Opinion

ID: 9766863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:00:59.455345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:26.767166
License: Public Domain

Daly, C. J.
(dissenting). The defendant was charged in the information with having operated a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor about 12:30 a.m. on December 3,1956, and was found guilty by a jury. Section 2412 of the General Statutes prohibits the operation of a motor vehicle by a person “while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or of any drug.” Upon the trial, the defendant offered evidence to prove, and claimed that she had proved, that from October, 1956, until after December 3,1956, she was under the care of a physician, who prescribed the use of demerol, a drug; that she took a demerol tablet by mouth at 4:30 p.m. on December 2,1956; that she took another between 9 and 10 p.m. on that date; that they could have caused her instability and some of the symptoms described by the physician who examined her and testified as a witness for the state, and that it is probable that they could have caused hér slow reaction and difficulty in performing the tests given to her after her arrest.
The court did not, as it should have under the provisions of § 400 of the Practice Book, quote in the finding as much of the charge as was necessary to fully present the errors assigned. That aside, in the charge, which is printed in the appendix to the defendant’s brief, the court stated:
“You will recall at the commencement of the case the clerk read to you the Information in which the defendant was charged, that on the 3rd day of De*311eember, 1956, the aeeused did operate a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor in violation of Section 2412 of the General Statutes. It is now my duty to tell you what those words of the statute mean. Perhaps before I do that, the Information is in the words of the statute, but I will read the statute anyway. ‘No person shall operate a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or of any drug.’ This statute provides a penalty for any person who operates a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or drugs. . . .
“It is for you ladies and gentlemen to take the testimony of the witnesses for the State on the one side and for the accused on the other and to form your own conclusion and find what you think the facts of the matter are, whether or not the testimony produced by the State does prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused at the time and place in question was operating her automobile upon the highways of Manchester at that time and place in violation of the statute.”
In the opinion of the majority it is stated: “[Throughout the charge the jury were repeatedly told that the crime as charged in the information involved two elements: first, the operation of a motor vehicle by the defendant, which was conceded by her, and second, that such operation was while she was ‘under the influence of intoxicating liquor’ .... The jury could not have understood the court’s charge as permitting a conviction upon proof of the operation of a motor vehicle under the influence of drugs or of anything other than intoxicating liquor. This assignment of error is without merit.” Clearly, the conclusion of the majority that the assignment of error is without merit was based upon the misconeep*312tion that the crime charged in the information was repeated “throughout the charge.” An examination of the entire charge shows that the crime alleged in the information was stated only in the first of the two portions of the charge quoted above. The only other reference made to the crime alleged is that expressed in the bare words “such a crime as is charged in this Information,” appearing in another part of the charge.
The test is whether it is reasonably conceivable that the jury could have been misled, to the defendant’s prejudice, by the court’s instructions complained of. Yorker v. Girard Co., 126 Conn. 96, 101, 9 A.2d 501; Maltbie, Conn. App. Proc., § 97. The defendant contended that her condition was caused by demerol, a drug, not by intoxicating liquor. As she was charged with having operated a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, she could not have been guilty of that offense if her condition was caused by a drug. By reason of the inaccurate statements in the court’s charge, it is reasonably conceivable that the jury could have been misled to believe that it was their duty to find the defendant guilty if her condition had been caused by either intoxicating liquor or a drug. Therefore I am unable to agree with the majority opinion, which holds that the court did not err in charging the jury.