Court Opinion

ID: 9521133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:58:26.754165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:57.141842
License: Public Domain

CADY, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The majority has properly stated our standard of review, yet fails to adhere to the standard in its review of this case.
This case has two layers of conduct at issue. The first is the conduct of the driver. The second is the conduct of the passenger. The legal standard applicable to each type of conduct is well settled. The conduct of the driver must be reckless. This means there must be evidence the driver knew or should have reasonably foreseen that harm would probably flow from his actions. State v. Torres, 495 N.W.2d 678, 681 (Iowa 1993). The passenger must have assented to the recklessness by his active participation or encouragement. State v. Tangie, 616 N.W.2d 564, 574 (Iowa 2000).
The majority determines the record failed to reveal substantial evidence to support a finding of recklessness by the driver. Yet, its analysis reveals this was done only by emphasizing evidence that tended to minimize the driver’s conduct and by drawing inferences from the evidence contrary to those that would support the verdict of the jury. See Torres, 495 N.W.2d at 681 (must consider all the evidence, not just that supporting defendant’s guilt). This is contrary to our appellate standard of review. An appellate court must not review a case as a jury, but must review the verdict reached by the jury. In performing this task, it must consider the evidence in a light most favorable to the State, not advocate for the defense. See id.
The majority first concludes the expert testimony concerning the skid marks left by the vehicle on the pavement of the street revealed the youthful driver in this *114case was abnormally quick and attentive to react to the crisis situation. It then uses this conclusion to defeat the State’s argument that the youthfulness, inexperience, and unlicensed status of the driver were factors to support recklessness.
This logic is not only a non sequitur, but the premise lacks foundation and is a misstatement to the record. The skid mark evidence in this case was unrelated to the skill of the driver in reacting to the situation. Instead, it simply revealed the vehicle probably came to a stop 116 feet from the point at which the driver made the decision to stop the vehicle. If the point of impact was known, it would also show the distance between the vehicle and the victim when the driver realized the need to brake the vehicle. ■
Contrary to the majority, no expert in this case rendered an opinion about the skill of the driver, but only opined about the distance between the vehicle and the victim at the moment the driver saw the need to apply the brakes. The defendant had argued at trial that there was not enough time to stop the vehicle because the victim ran into the path of the vehicle. This conclusion was based on a claim that the point of impact occurred ten feet into the skid. The State argued the point of impact occurred at the very end of the skid, implying that a reasonably safe driver would have had enough time to stop the car without striking the victim. The majority not only fails to consider this evidence in a light most favorable to the State, as it is required, but draws an inference favorable to the defendant that is incorrect.
The majority next turns to the evidence of the poor condition of the brakes of the vehicle and concludes this evidence cannot be imputed to the driver because there was no direct evidence he knew the brakes were faulty. Again, the majority fails to consider the evidence in the ease in a light most favorable to the State. There was ample circumstantial evidence in the record that the driver knew the brakes were not in good condition. The owner of the vehicle testified the brakes were “mushy.” There was evidence the brake warning light on the dashboard of the vehicle was illuminated. Furthermore, even the thirteen-year-old boy who also operated the vehicle on that fateful morning, Markey Glenn, could tell from driving the vehicle that the brakes were not in good condition. Clearly, the inference the State was entitled to receive and that the jury could have drawn is that any driver operating the vehicle would have realized the brakes did not work properly.
The majority then turns to the evidence that the stock car trailer obscured the driver’s full view of the street ahead, as well as the children playing near the street in the obscured area. It then uses this evidence to conclude the driver could not have been reckless because he had no knowledge of the young child ahead. However, there is another important conclusion that can be drawn that is favorable to the State. A reasonable driver would stop or at least slow down when the vision of the road ahead is obscured by an obstruction on the road. The inference the majority should draw in this case is that the driver failed to slow to a safe speed when his vision became obscured, and this failure is a factor to support recklessness. The vehicle in this case was not being driven in an area where the presence of children in or near the street would not be expected. It was in a residential area. It was a sunny, fall Saturday morning. It was a time for drivers to expect people to be in the area. The failure to reduce the speed of the vehicle or to stop the vehicle when the driver’s vision ahead is obscured is a clear factor that supports recklessness. *115It showed a clear lack of care and concern for what might be in the obscured area. Moreover, it certainly cannot be used to disprove recklessness.
Finally, the majority minimizes the evidence offered by the State that the driver failed to stop at an intersection, as required, just prior to the collision. The majority downplays this evidence because it was not supported by an eyewitness. Again, the majority violates our standard of review. Tests by police after the incident revealed it was not possible to reach the speed of the vehicle in this case from a stopped position at the stop sign. This was circumstantial evidence the driver failed to stop that we must accept. Additionally, the majority consistently refers to the speed of the vehicle at twenty-seven miles per hour. The State’s experts, however, placed the speed of the vehicle in a range between twenty-nine and thirty-two miles per hour seconds before the accident.
In my view, substantial evidence supports recklessness, and we have done a disservice to our jury system by reversing the conviction. There was evidence the driver should have reasonably foreseen some harm was likely by operating a vehicle, in a residential area at the time children would be expected to be playing outside, at a speed up to seven miles over the speed limit, and when the driver’s vision of the street ahead and adjoining yards was substantially obstructed. Additionally, the vehicle had noticeably faulty brakes and was driven by a youthful, inexperienced, untrained, unlicensed operator who had just ran a stop sign and was celebrating the successful passage of an oncoming truck and trailer, with a maneuver that required him to jump the curb, by exchanging high-five’s with the passenger. As the driver and the passenger engaged in their reckless and heedless celebration, the vehicle blindly and contemptuously continued to speed into the path of little Steven Choate. This was reckless conduct by the driver, and Sutton is responsible for it as an aider and abettor. Sutton was the only experienced driver in the vehicle. Instead of discouraging such reckless conduct, he commended the driver by telling him he was doing a “good job.”
The majority is correct that a violation of the rule of the road, by itself, does not constitute recklessness. See State v. Cox, 500 N.W.2d 23, 26 (Iowa 1993). Clearly, we cannot compartmentalize reckless driving into categories of violations of rules of the road. This is because reckless driving is actually a state of mind. Thus, we look beyond the particular violation of the rule of the road involved in the case to consider whether the overall conduct of the driver would support a reckless state of mind — a mind that reveals actual or constructive knowledge that the operation of the vehicle creates an unreasonable risk of harm for others. See Torres, 495 N.W.2d at 681. Thus, in Cox, for example, the running of a stop sign did not constitute reckless driving because there was no additional evidence the driver was speeding or operating the vehicle in an erratic manner. Cox, 500 N.W.2d at 26.
The driver in this case was not reckless simply because he was speeding or because his conduct resulted in the death of another. Instead, he was reckless because he was driving erratically and carelessly, just as the driver in Cox would have been reckless if the stop sign violation would have been accompanied by erratic driving. This case is not a case of misjudgment or inadvertence by the driver. It is a case of horseplay accompanied by an uncaring attitude and careless frame of mind. The behavior displayed was “fraught with a high degree of danger” and was clearly enough to show the driver should have *116known that the operation of the vehicle created an unreasonable risk of harm. See Torres, 495 N.W.2d at 681. We are obligated by our standard of review to affirm the verdict of the jury.
LARSON, J., joins this dissent.