Court Opinion

ID: 9777860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:25:58.190123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:02.056191
License: Public Domain

SHRUM, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the portion of the majority opinion that reverses the defendant’s conviction for armed criminal action. I respectfully dissent from the part of the opinion that reverses the defendant’s involuntary manslaughter conviction. I dissent because I believe that three of the drinking slogans were relevant and admissible, and I believe the admission into evidence of the other drinking slogans was not prejudicial to the defendant.
In examining the criminal negligence element of involuntary manslaughter, the explanatory notes following § 2.02 of the Model Penal Code are instructive because the definition of criminal negligence found in § 562.016.5 is derived from that section of the code. Comment to 1973 Proposed Missouri Criminal Code § 562.016, 40 Y.A.M.S. 234-35 (1979). The model code definition of criminal negligence has been used with slight variations in most of the recent criminal law revisions in other jurisdictions. Id. at 235.1
The explanatory notes following Model Penal Code § 2.02 state, in pertinent part:
A person acts negligently under this subsection when he inadvertently creates a substantial and unjustifiable risk of which he ought to be aware. He is liable if given the nature and degree of the risk, his failure to perceive it is, considering the nature and purpose of the actor’s conduct and the circumstances known to him, a gross deviation from the care that *73would be exercised by a reasonable person in his situation.... The tribunal must evaluate the actor’s failure of perception and determine whether, under all the circumstances, it was serious enough to be condemned. The jury must find fault, and must find that it was substantial and unjustified....
[T]he jury is asked to perform two distinct functions. First, it is to examine the risk and the factors that are relevant to its substantiality and justifiability. In the case of negligence, these questions are asked not in terms of what the actor’s perceptions actually were, but in terms of an objective view of the situation as it actually existed. Second, the jury is to make the culpability judgment, this time in terms of whether the failure of the defendant to perceive the risk justifies condemnation. Considering the nature and purpose of his conduct and the circumstances known to him, the question is whether the defendant’s failure to perceive a risk involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor’s situation.
Model Penal Code and Commentaries, § 2.02 note 4 at 240-41 (American Law Institute 1985).
Under the approach described in the above quoted Model Penal Code commentary, the jury first had to determine that the defendant created a substantial and unjustifiable risk of which he ought to have been aware. Under the § 562.016.5 objective standard of care (that which a reasonable person would exercise in the situation), the jury reasonably could have concluded the defendant ought to have been aware that, in taking to the road in an intoxicated condition, he created the substantial and unjustifiable risk that he would cause the death of another person.
The second aspect of the criminal negligence inquiry requires the jury to decide whether the failure of the defendant to perceive the risk is a “gross deviation” from the reasonable person standard of care of § 562.016.5, and whether such failure of perception “justifies condemnation.” Model Penal Code and Commentaries § 2.02 at 241. The jury’s inquiry now departs from the reasonable person standard and focuses on the defendant’s actual perceptions. Under the Model Penal Code approach, the jury should consider “the circumstances known to [the defendant]” in deciding whether to condemn the failure of perception. Id. at 241. In the case before us, in deciding whether to condemn the defendant’s failure to perceive the risk that, if he drove in an intoxicated condition he would cause the death of another person, the jury should be allowed to consider “circumstances known to him” including his knowledge of how the consumption of alcohol would affect his ability to drive.
At least three of the drinking slogans displayed by the defendant in his van logically relate to his knowledge of how alcohol consumption would affect him, i.e., that it would (1) result in his loss of touch with reality (“Reality is for those who can’t stay drunk”), (2) affect his ability to perceive (“The more I drink, the better you look”), and (3) alter his moods (“I only drink to make other people more interesting”). The jury could reasonably infer from his knowledge of the effects of alcohol consumption on his grasp of reality, his perceptions, and his moods that he also knew the effects of alcohol consumption on his ability to drive.
In deciding whether to condemn the defendant for his failure to perceive the risk that he would cause the death of another person if he drove in an intoxicated condition, the jury should have been permitted to consider the defendant’s knowledge of how the consumption of alcohol might affect his perceptions thereby causing him to not perceive the risk. The three drinking slogans are probative of defendant’s knowledge. With evidence before it of the defendant’s knowledge of how the consumption of alcohol would affect his ability to perceive the risk he undertook when he drove while intoxicated, the jury could have concluded his failure of perception constituted a gross deviation from the reasonable person standard of care.
Before evidence can be excluded on the ground it is irrelevant, it is essential that it *74appears so beyond doubt. State v. O’Neal, 718 S.W,2d 498, 503 (Mo. banc 1986), cert, denied 480 U.S. 926, 107 S.Ct. 1388, 94 L.Ed.2d 702 (1987); State v. Girardier, 801 S.W.2d 793, 796 (Mo.App.1991). Not only am I not convinced beyond doubt that the three slogans specified were irrelevant, I believe they were relevant.
The relevance of the slogans is not the final consideration, however, because relevant evidence should be excluded if its admission would bring into the case matters that would cause prejudice wholly disproportionate to the value and usefulness of the evidence. State v. Pollard, 719 S.W.2d 38, 39 (Mo.App.1986), State v. Diercks, 674 S.W.2d 72, 78-79 (Mo.App.1984). However, the standard of review is clear. Whether such offered evidence is relevant and whether its probative value outweighs its inflammatory and prejudicial danger is for the trial court to decide, and its decision will not be disturbed absent an abuse of its discretion. State v. Ray, 637 S.W.2d 708, 709 (Mo. banc 1982); State v. Gibson, 636 S.W.2d 956, 958 (Mo. banc 1982); State v. Easter, 657 S.W.2d 52, 53 (Mo.App.1983). Moreover, a trial court may consider other evidence of guilt in deciding whether the proffered evidence is so prejudicial to the defendant that it should be excluded. State v. Nolan, 717 S.W.2d 573, 576-77 (Mo.App.1986). Here, the evidence against the defendant, exclusive of the slogans, was strong.
The remaining drinking slogans were not relevant to the offense and should not have been admitted into evidence. However, I believe no prejudice resulted to the defendant from their admission. In challenging the admissibility of evidence, a defendant must show not only error in the admission but also resulting prejudice. State v. Reyes, 740 S.W.2d 257, 263 (Mo.App.1987). Trial court error that would require reversal in a close case may be disregarded where evidence of guilt is strong. State v. Burns, 795 S.W.2d 527, 531 (Mo.App.1990). In such a case, the error is harmless. Girardier, 801 S.W.2d at 796. I believe that had the irrelevant drinking slogans been excluded, the other evidence submitted against the defendant was strong enough to convince the jury to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of involuntary manslaughter. See Burns, 795 S.W.2d at 531; State v. Rodriguez, 581 S.W.2d 50, 52 (Mo.App.1979).
For these reasons, I would affirm the manslaughter conviction.

. Model Penal Code § 202(2)(d) defines criminal negligence:
A person acts negligently with respect to a material element of an offense when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the actor's failure to perceive it, considering the nature and purpose of his conduct and the circumstances known to him, involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor’s situation.