Court Opinion

ID: 9846692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:45:41.190822+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:43.754070
License: Public Domain

BRETT, Judge,
dissents.
The majority opinion has sounded the death knell for requiring that a defendant be culpable in order to be found guilty of negligent homicide. The statute under which the defendant was charged is 47 O.S. 1971, § ll-903(a), which states:
*1168“When the death of any person ensues within one year as a proximate result of injury received by the driving of any vehicle in reckless disregard of the safety of others, the person so operating such vehicle shall be guilty of negligent homicide.” (Emphasis added)
Here, no question was raised as to whether the person died within one year as the proximate result of injury received by the vehicle defendant was driving at the time of the occurrence of the injury. The question is whether the jury was properly instructed regarding the element of “reckless disregard of the safety of others.”
Less than one year ago, this Court in Thompson v. State, Okl.Cr., 554 P.2d 105 (1976), stated that “reckless disregard of the safety of others” was the same as culpable negligence.1 Quoting Freeman v. State, 69 Okl.Cr. 164, 101 P.2d 653 (1940), and Crossett v. State, 96 Okl.Cr. 209, 252 P.2d 150 (1952), at page 108 of Thompson v. State, this Court defined “in reckless disregard for the safety of others” as the omission to do something which a reasonable and prudent person would do, or the want of the usual and ordinary care and caution in the performance of an act usually and ordinarily exercised by a person under similar circumstances and conditions.” Saying that the definition need not be categorized as ordinary, gross or any other degree of negligence, the Court said that what was important was that the jury be given a proper definition of reckless disregard “to which it could readily apply a factual situation.”
It should be noted that Thompson v. State, supra, appears to require a lesser degree of negligence than do those cases which it purports to follow. In both Freeman v. State, supra, 101 P.2d at 662 and Crossett v. State, supra, 252 P.2d at 159, this Court quoted Nail v. State, 33 Okl.Cr. 100, 242 P. 270, 272 (1925), stating:
“ ‘By no means every instance where one person is injured or killed by a vehicle driven by another do the circumstances constitute a crime. There must be negligence rising to the degree of criminal or culpable negligence. The culpability of a defendant is a question of fact for the jury, and the test is: Do the acts charged as criminal show a degree of carelessness amounting to a culpable disregard of the rights and safety of others, and did said acts cause the death of deceased? If so, it establishes a case of criminal negligence.’ ”
In Nail v. State, supra, at 272, this Court quoted in part from Bevan, Negligence in Law, Vol. 3, page 7, saying:
“ ‘ . . . Criminal negligence per se does not differ from negligence simply. The same negligence, as it affects the individual and the state, is, respectively, gross negligence and criminal negligence. Criminal negligence then is negligence in such circumstances that it imposes an obligation remissible by the state, but irremissible by the individual actually damnified by it; and since the state will not lightly intervene, criminal negligence must be some “substantial thing” and not a mere casual inadvertence. Between criminal negligence, however, and actionable negligence, there is no principle of discrimination, but a question of degree only.’ ”
See also, Wilson v. State, 70 Okl.Cr. 262,105 P.2d 789, 791 (1940).
The majority would now tell us that even the finding of a lesser degree of negligence ' *1169mandated by Thompson v. State, supra, is not required. Taking the instructions to the jury as a whole, the only instructions dealing even tangentially with “in reckless disregard of the safety of others” are number 4, which is the negligent homicide statute, 47 O.S.1971, § 11 — 903(a), and number 5, which is set out in full in the majority opinion, and which is 47 O.S.1971, § 11-801(a). No definition of “in reckless disregard of the safety of others” was given to the jury “to which it could readily apply a factual situation,” as is required by Thompson.
Absent an instruction on what constitutes “in reckless disregard of human safety,” I think instruction number 5 is tantamount to a directed verdict of guilt. The majority opinion states that instruction number 5 is a more particular definition of ordinary care in operating a motor vehicle. However, when one looks at the Highway Safety Code it is clear that the legislature intended that “in reckless disregard of the safety of others” mean something other that the mere violation of one of the standards set forth in 47 O.S.1971, § 11-801. As pointed out previously, Section ll-903(a) requires that the motor vehicle be operated “in reckless disregard of the safety of others.” Section ll-901(a) defines reckless driving as driving a motor vehicle “in a careless or wanton manner without regard for the safety of persons or property or in violation of the conditions outlined in section 11-801.” (Emphasis added) Although the words used are not identical, “in reckless disregard of the safety of others” and “in a careless or wanton manner without regard for the safety of persons . . . ” in effect mean the same thing. Therefore, in adding “or in violation of the conditions outlined in Section 11-801,” the legislature made it clear that merely violating the conditions of 11-801 is not in and of itself being “in reckless disregard of the safety of others.”
The majority opinion cites three cases which deal with the phrase “assured clear distance ahead” found in the latter part of 47 O.S.1971, § ll-801(a) and in jury instruction number 5. However, a reading of the cited cases shows that they ought not be used as authority for not requiring an instruction on the meaning of “in reckless disregard of the safety of others.” Moore v. Strong, 360 F.2d 71 (10th Cir. 1966) is a civil case involving compensatory damages, and therefore is a minimal value in the context of the instant case. In Wilson v. State, supra, the defendant’s criminal liability for her inability to stop her car in an “assured clear distance ahead” was determined in the context of the definition of culpable negligence discussed above. In Holland v. State, Okl.Cr., 274 P.2d 792, 794 (1954), this Court pointed out that the section of the statute involving “assured clear distance ahead” was only incidentally involved in the case. The Court further said that what constituted an “assured distance ahead” was a fact question, and varied with the circumstances of each case. While traveling about 40 miles per hour in Tulsa, Holland passed a truck which was obscuring his vision in an intersection. He passed against approaching traffic and knocked down and ran over a pedestrian, and then fled. At the time he hit the pedestrian, he was straddling the center line and moving at approximately 25 miles per hour. Here, the defendant was clearly culpably negligent.
In the instant case, there was no instruction giving a definition of “reckless disregard of the safety of others” to which the jury could readily apply the factual situation, and instruction number 5, as it was given with the two sections of it in the conjunctive, in effect instructed the jury that if they found that the defendant had driven her car into the deceased’s car and a death resulted, they should find the defendant guilty of negligent homicide. Therefore, the instructions were not in keeping with the requirements of Thompson v. State, supra, or of prior case law, and created criminal liability in the absence of a finding of even ordinary negligence on the part of the defendant.
I also believe that the defendant did not receive adequate representation at her trial. *1170The defendant’s financial status forced her to depend on the Public Defender’s Office to represent her at her trial. Notwithstanding the fact that negligent homicide is a misdemeanor offense, the maximum punishment is one (1) year’s confinement in the County Jail and a One Thousand Dollar ($1,000.00) fine. The record shows that through the inexperience of the legal intern who represented the defendant, she was not properly represented. The record also clearly reveals that the intern’s supervising attorney did not step in at appropriate times to render the assistance the intern required. The legal intern failed to obtain the necessary information to show that the defendant operated her car as any other ordinary and prudent person would have operated a vehicle. For example, during cross-examination, the taxi driver was permitted to say that the defendant’s vehicle was traveling “extremely fast,” but the intern was not allowed to question the driver about his prior statements regarding the defendant’s speed at the time of the impact. I believe that with proper cross-examination it would have been shown that this witness was unable to estimate the speed of the oncoming vehicle at night when rain was falling. In addition, the record reflects that at the time of the accident the taxi driver was engaged in a conversation with his passenger about her destination, and the taxi driver testified that he was unfamiliar with the part of town where the accident occurred. Also, the record fails to reflect whether that part of South Portland Avenue is a two lane or a four lane road. Nowhere in the record is there any testimony which reveals what the speed limit at that particular place might have been. Consequently, I can draw no conclusion other than that the defendant did not receive adequate representation at her trial.
I believe that after considering all the facts involved — road conditions, weather conditions, and the fact that the stalled vehicle was in the middle of the intersection — that the defendant did what any ordinary and prudent person would have done under the same or similar circumstances, including trying to jump the curb when she saw the stalled car. There are circumstances concerning automobile accidents the cause for which cannot be specifically placed upon any particular individual, and I believe this is one of those situations. The proper administration of justice dictates that the defendant not be tried with negligent homicide under the circumstances contained in this record.
I would further point out that in the Thompson case, where the defendant was clearly culpably negligent, the defendant was given only a five hundred dollar fine. Here, the defendant was given a one year sentence and a one hundred dollar fine. Therefore, insofar as the majority of this Court affirms the conviction, I urge the Public Defender to apply to the trial court for a suspended sentence under the provisions of 22 O.S.1971, § 994. I believe the facts and circumstances of this case clearly warrant the suspension of the sentence imposed on the defendant.

. Most states require a higher degree of negligence for a finding of culpable negligence than did Oklahoma, even before the instant case. For a discussion of the requirements for a finding of culpable negligence in Oklahoma and other jurisdictions, see Annot. Test of Criteria of Term, “Culpable Negligence," "Criminal Negligence," or “Gross Negligence” Appearing in Statute Defining or Governing Manslaughter, 161 A.L.R. 10 (1946). Where a negligent homicide statute describes the culpable standard in terms of negligence rather than in terms of operating a vehicle in a reckless manner or with disregard for the safety of others, etc., the standard of culpability generally has been held to be ordinary negligence as opposed to criminal negligence, gross negligence or wilfulness. ' ' See, Annot. What Amounts to Negligence Within Meaning of Statutes Penalizing Negligent Homicide by Operation of a Motor Vehicle, 20 A.L.R.2d 473 (1968).