Court Opinion

ID: 9732287
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:14:04.082884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:35.540901
License: Public Domain

PAPADAKOS, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent from the majority opinion essentially because I am convinced by the facts and applicable law of this case that evidence of the victim’s intoxication is not relevant.
The facts indicate that the Appellant, exceeding the speed limit, illegally drove his car into a center turning lane where the victim was struck and killed. As the majority notes, the Appellant also suffered a “panic stress reaction’’ at that time. The Appellant now claims that he is entitled to offer proof of the victim’s own intoxication in order to demonstrate that the victim fell into the path of his car rather than the driver running down the victim. In effect, the Appellant seeks to prove under the Motor Vehicle Code that the death was not the probable result of a Code violation.
The majority opinion, nevertheless, engages in perverse logic. Under the proposed rationale, the Appellant would be allowed to introduce evidence of the victim’s intoxication, although the central issue is whether the victim fell in front of the car. In order to make the evidence of intoxication relevant, however, the Appellant must make at least an offer of proof that the victim actually fell in front of him. Only then would the evidence of intoxication and the fall connect in a coherent manner. The majority would have us *544believe that because the victim was intoxicated, it could be reasonably inferred by a jury that he caused his own death. Such argument makes no sense, and I presume that the trial judge came to the same conclusion for the same reason. The mere fact of the victim’s intoxication becomes relevant as a matter of law only where there is proof in the first place that the victim himself fell into the path of the swerving car. At that point, the victim’s intoxication would be used to explain the basis of the fall.
The majority has the logic backwards and, for that reason, I must register my disagreement.
McDERMOTT, J., joins this dissenting opinion.