Court Opinion

ID: 9759198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:08:33.354693+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:00.215960
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. I do not share the majority’s concern that this court would be “creating a common law crime” by holding that an unborn, fully viable fetus1 is a “person” within the meaning of our manslaughter statute. This is not a “new crime.” This court would not in any sense be “creating” a crime. The crime was created legislatively as part of the Revised Statutes, which took effect in 1838. What we would be doing by affirming the trial court is what courts traditionally and necessarily do — interpret an act of the legislature for the purpose of giving effect to what we perceive to be the legislative intent. The act, Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1504(l)(c) (Repl. 1977), is quite clear: Manslaughter — (1) A person commits manslaughter if: (c) he recklessly causes the death of another person. Prior Arkansas law specifically included in the offense “the driving of any vehicle in reckless, willful or wanton disregard of the safety of others. . .” See Commentary, § 41 -1504. No intent is required. Seabourn v. State, 236 Ark. 175, 365 S.W.2d 133 (1963). The issue then is simply whether the legislature intended “person” to include a full term unborn child in 1975 when our current statute was framed to take effect on January 1, 1976.1 submit that logic and common sense weigh on the side of the affirmative. I concede the weight of authority holds that an unborn child is not a “person” under the common law view of homicide. The division among the states seems to stand at 22 to 9. See LaFave and Scott, Substantive Criminal Law, § 7.1(c) (1986) and 40 A.L.R.3d 444 (1971). But a number of those cases cited by the majority date from the turn of the century and before: Clarke v. State, 117 Ala. 480, 23 So. 67 (1898); Smith v. State, 33 Me. 48 (1851); State v. Sogge, 36 N.E. 262, 161 N.W. 1022 (1917); State v. McGee, 1 Add. 1 (Pa. 1791); Morgan v. State, 148 Tenn. 417, 256 S.W. 433 (1923); Huebner v. State, 131 Wis. 162, 111 N.W. 63 (1907). Some involve homicide of a higher degree than manslaughter, crimes involving specific intent as opposed to wanton conduct, where the malice was not directed toward the fetus and the issue of transferred intent complicated the decisional process. More importantly, the principle which gives commonality to those cases on which the majority relies is based on the “born alive rule,” that is, that there could be no liability under the common law for crimes against a fetus unless the child was born alive. The rule is outmoded and entirely discredited. It had its origins in the fourteenth century (see 40 A.L.R.3d at p. 446) and gained acceptance during an age in which still births exceeded live births and medical knowledge concerning viability was nonexistent. Justice James L. Ryan, of the Michigan Supreme Court, dissenting in People v. Guthrie, 417 Mich. 1006, 334 N.W.2d 616 (1983) describes the rule: The “rule” is generally understood to derive from the impossibility, 300 years ago, of determining whether and when a fetus was living and when and how it died, and the consequent necessity to preclude the fundamental inquiry whether a fetal death was a human death. To hold as a matter of law in the waning years of the twentieth century that the question of the personhood or humanity of a viable unborn child in the ninth month of gestation is governed by a common law rule of proof invented by the venerable but fallible Sir Edward Coke in the seventeenth century, to accommodate the medical and scientific impossibility of then proving the viability of a fetus, is disingenuous reasoning in the extreme. We are not bound by outmoded notions founded on a lack of information when scientific knowledge now provides clear and reliable information. The exact cause of the death of this fetus was fully provided by the proof and was shown to be directly attributable to the collision. It seems patently illogical to me to hold that if an infant dies immediately before birth it is not a “person,” but if it dies immediately after birth it is a “person.” I believe we should reject the born alive rule and follow the course taken by the recent cases of State v. Horne, 282 S.C. 444, 319 S.E.2d 703 (1984); State v. Burrell, 699 P.2d 499 (Kan. 1985) and Commonwealth v. Cass, 392 Mass. 799, 467 N.E.2d 1324 (1984), where it was said: We think that the better rule is that infliction of prenatal injuries resulting in the death of a viable fetus, before or after it is born, is homicide. If a person were to commit violence against a pregnant woman and destroy the fetus within her, we would not want the death of the fetus to go unpunished. We believe that our criminal law should extend its protection to viable fetuses. As to Carpenter v. Logan, 281 Ark. 184, 662 S.W.2d 808 (1984), we declined to decide whether an unborn fetus has a cause of action because the probate proceeding was wholly ex parte. On the issue of civil liability, it might be noted that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania lists thirty jurisdictions as recognizing survival and wrongful death actions on behalf of stillborn children. See Amadio v. Levin, 50 A.2d 1085 (1985). Nor would I hold that the appellant is entitled to fair warning that his conduct in this instance should not be criminalized based on a narrow interpretation of “person.” The cases cited by the appellant have no bearing on the type of culpable misconduct demonstrated by this record and warrant no extended discussion. The mother whose child was killed and who lived with the appellant at the time of the collision and trial, testified the appellant had been drinking all day and had smoked marijuana cigarettes. Large amounts of beer were consumed and appellant’s blood alcohol level was. 18 following the collision. While the exact consequences may not have occurred to appellant, the criminality of his conduct could hardly have been in doubt. On that basis Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347 (1964) bears no similarity to the facts before us. In Bouie conduct which reasonably could have been thought lawful was held to be subject to fair warning prior to the applicability of a broader statutory construction which would have rendered such conduct unlawful. I would affirm the judgment.   The mother testified her child was two weeks overdue when the collision occurred. Her obstetrician estimated the age of the child, a boy, at 40 weeks at the time of death.