Court Opinion

ID: 9559728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:34:40.322041+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:35.838919
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
BRETT, P. J.
On petition for rehearing it is urged und.er defendant’s proposition No. 3, that the trial court erred in receiving the verdict of the jury and in leaving the punishment of defendant to the court without stating, that *195they could not agree upon the punishment as instructed by the trial court’s instruction No. 15A. We did not overlook this contention but found the same to be wholly without merit. It is without merit for the record shows that no objection was made at the time the verdict was returned, but objection was made for the first time on motion for new trial. The objection therefore came too late as has been repeatedly held by this court. In Pruitt v. State, 17 Okla. Cr. 434, 190 P. 894, wherein the verdict as to form was almost identical with the verdict in the case at bar, it was held:
“An informal verdict should have been objected to when returned, which would have called the attention of the court to its defective form and given an opportunity for its correction.” Simpson v. State, 16 Okla. Cr. 533, 185 P. 116.
In Harrell v. State, 43 Okla. Cr. 278, 278 P. 404, in syllabus 2, this court said:
“An informal or irregular verdict should be objected to when returned so that the attention of the court may be called to its defective form and he be given an opportunity to correct it. When this is not done, all reasonable intendments and inferences will be indulged to sustain it as to form.”
See, also, Nance v. State, 43 Okla. Cr. 247, 278 P. 357, and cases cited therein. Also, Smith v. State, 81 Okla. Cr. 412, 165 P. 2d 831, 167 P. 2d 83; Id., 83 Okla. Cr. 392, 177 P. 2d 523. The Ladd v. State case, 89 Okla. Cr. 294, 207 P. 2d 350, relied on by the defendant, in light of the foregoing authorities is clearly not in point. Therein it was not held that the jury's failure to state in their verdict that "they are unable to agree' stands as a bar to the trial court receiving such a verdict, where no objection is made to receiving it. That case merely suggested a proper procedure. Herein the verdict was not such a verdict as confronted the court in Smith v. State, 83 Okla. Cr. 392, 177 P. 2d 523, supra, where the intention of the jury could not be arrived at. Here there was no uncertainty as to the meaning of the verdict in the case at bar. It is therefore apparent that this contention is without substantial merit.
Such is not the situation in the matter of our matured attempt to reconcile instruction No. 13 with the defendant’s requested instruction No. 2 as being in substance the same which the court refused to give, and to which the defendant strenuously objects.
On rehearing we are convinced we were in error and we are now of the opinion that the trial court should have instructed the jury that if they found beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant committed culpable or criminal negligence in the operation of his automobile before the defendant could be found guilty of second-degree manslaughter, they must further find beyond a reasonable doubt that the said culpable or criminal negligence was the proximate cause of the death of the deceased. Such an instruction would have been in keeping with the rule announced in Howard v. State, 88 Okla. Cr. 4, 199 P. 2d 240, 241, wherein it was said in syllabus 5:
“A person may be found guilty of criminal homicide arising from the negligent operation of an automobile, but it is uniformly held that it must be shown that such negligent operation, was the direct and proximate cause of the death; that is, that there was a causal connection between the act and the death.”
In Chandler v. State, 79 Okla. Cr. 323, 333, 146 P. 2d 598, the rule was stated as in Howard v. State, supra, and a long list of cases cited in support thereof, as follows: 99 A. L. R. 772; Dunville v. State, 188 Ind. 373, 123 N. E. 689; People v. Barnes, 182 Mich. 179, 148 N. W. 400; Shaw v. Wilcox, Mo. App., 224 S. W. 58; State. v. McIvor, 1 W. W. Harr, 123, 31 Del. 123, 111 A. 616; State v. Long, 7 Boyce, Del., 397, 108 A. 36; People v. Black, 111 Cal. App. 90, *196295 P. 87; State v. Schaeffer, 96 Ohio St. 215, 117 N. E. 220, L. R. A. 1918B, 945, Ann. Cas. 1918E, 1137; Jackson v. State, 101 Ohio St. 152, 127 N. E. 870; Norman v. State, 121 Tex. Cr. R. 433, 52 S. W. 2d 1051; O'Mally v. Eagan, 43 Wyo. 233, 2 P. 2d 1063, 77 A. L. R. 582; Hiller v. State, 164 Tenn. 388, 50 S. W. 2d 225. See also Hall v. State, 80 Okla. Cr. 310, 159 P. 2d 283. The foregoing cases represent the fixed and well established law on this question. We are of the opinion it was error for the trial court not to so instruct the jury. We are further of the opinion that the language in instruction No. 13 "through culpable negligence" was not sufficient to meet the requirement of a direct instruction to the effect that to find the defendant guilty they must find his culpable negligence was the proximate cause of the decedent's death. We are of the opinion as pointed out in the petition for rehearing that the words "through culpable negligence" cannot in the true sense be interpreted the same as "proximate cause" of the death of the decedent. We believe, as pointed out in the petition for rehearing, to hold that the words "through culpable negligence" is tantamount to the term "proximate cause" would be to establish a dangerous precedent by this court which would encourage sloppiness and carelessness in the preparation of trial court's instructions and create uncertainty in the law as applied to this character of case. It would constitute every trial court as the oracle of its own terminology, and open the door to destruction of the time tested definitive terms of the law and eliminate precedents of definition in the matter of instructions. Ultimately precedents might mean nothing and a maze of uncertainty of terms would confront both the bench and the bar. One of the chief virtues of good law is its certainty and one of the chief vices of bad law is its uncertainty. It is the duty of this court to guard against such contingencies. Therefore, we now take the view that the court's failure to instruct that before the jury could find the defendant guilty of second-degree manslaughter they must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of acts of culpable or criminal negligence, and further find that defendant's culpable or criminal negligence was the proximate cause of the death of the decedent, constituted reversible error. Because of the trial court's failure so to instruct we are of the opinion that the opinion as heretofore rendered in this matter should be and the same is hereby modified to conform with the principles herein announced, and this cause should be and hereby is reversed and remanded for a new trial in conformity with the principles relative to instructions as hereinbefore set forth.
JONES and POWELL, JJ., concur.