Court Opinion

ID: 9560579
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:51:42.562896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:01.836291
License: Public Domain

Swanson, J.*
(concurring) — While initially persuaded otherwise, I now join the majority in reversing Delmarter's conviction.
*791A recent federal case, Schwendeman v. Wallenstein, 971 F.2d 313 (9th Cir. 1992), cert, denied, 113 S. Ct. 975 (1993), which I find persuasive if not controlling, supports my concurrence in the decision to reverse. In Schwendeman, a vehicular assault case, a permissive inference instruction identical to instruction 9 was given, which permitted the jury to infer reckless driving, an element of vehicular assault from evidence of excessive speed.12 A Washington jury found him guilty of vehicular assault. The Court of Appeals affirmed and the Washington Supreme Court denied the motion for discretionary review. Federal habeas relief was rejected by the United States District Court. The Circuit Court of Appeals granted review and held that the permissive inference instruction was constitutionally defective, and reversed the denial of a writ of habeas corpus with instructions that it be granted unless, within a reasonable time, Schwendeman is granted a new trial.
According to the facts recited in the federal appeals court's opinion, Schwendeman, by his own admission, drove his pickup truck 37 m.p.h. in a 25 m.p.h. zone at night down a road with potholes. Other evidence indicated that his speed was in excess of 50 m.p.h. The testimony also indicated that he swerved his vehicle back and forth with four passengers riding in the back of his open-bed truck. He lost control of his truck and struck a telephone pole, injuring his passengers. The court said this was ample evidence to support the conviction. But the court interpreted instruction 7, the permissive inference instruction, as limited in its scope of the evidential facts to speed alone. The court said,
But instruction number 7 isolated speed as the only circumstance needed to permit the jury to find reckless driving and thereby convict Schwendeman. The jury was told, in effect, that it could ignore all the other evidence, consider only the *792evidence of Schwendeman's speed, and if it found Schwendeman was exceeding the speed limit, that was enough to convict him — not of speeding, but of reckless driving.
Schwendeman, 971 F.2d at 316.
If we interpret instruction 9 in the instant case in a similar way, as I think we must, the instruction permitted the jury to find an element of the crime charged without considering all of the evidence presented at trial. Given that limitation of the evidential scope of the challenged instruction, its validity depends upon the strength of the connection between the proved fact of speed in excess of the maximum (40 to 45 m.p.h. in a 25 m.p.h. zone) and the elemental fact of willful and wanton disregard.13 In Schwendeman, the court utilized the "more likely than not" test and said,
Although it is certainly true that excessive speed is probative of a jury's determination of recklessness, here we cannot say with substantial assurance that the inferred fact of reckless driving more likely than not flowed from the proved fact of excessive speed. Under Ulster County, the instruction was constitutionally deficient.
(Citations omitted.) Schwendeman, at 316.
Similarly here, I cannot say with substantial assurance that the inferred fact of willful and wanton disregard more likely than not flowed from the admitted fact of driving 40 to 45 m.p.h. in a 25 m.p.h. zone. Because instruction 9 did not tell the jury to consider the inference in conjunction with all *793relevant evidence, but instead isolated speed as the only consideration, the rational relationship was weakened to the point that it fails even the preponderance test.
I conclude that instruction 9 is constitutionally deficient and concur in the decision to reverse.

 Judge Herbert A. Swanson is serving as a judge pro tempore of the Court of Appeals pursuant to CAR 21(c).

The trial court in Schwendeman gave the jury instruction 7, which states: "A person who drives in excess of the maximum lawful speed at the point of operation may be inferred to have driven in a reckless manner.
"This inference is not binding upon you and it is for you to determine what weight, if any, such inference is to be given." Schwendeman, at 315.

Apparently Delmarter did not request a Sherman instruction, nor does he claim ineffective assistance of counsel for the failure to make such a request. See State v. Sherman, 98 Wn.2d 53, 653 P.2d 612 (1982). A necessary part of an eluding a police vehicle case is proof that the defendant manifested willful and wanton disregard for the lives and property of others, which has both objective and subjective components. The Sherman court held that the defendant may rebut the inference of willful disregard and is entitled to an instruction telling the jury that circumstantial evidence of his driving creates only a rebuttable inference that the defendant had "wanton and wilful disregard". It appears that Delmarter offered some evidence tending to rebut the State’s evidence. He testified that he was listening to his 6-speaker stereo, which was really cranked up. He said he saw the police car but did not hear the siren and did not think they were chasing him. See State v. Thomas, 109 Wn.2d 222, 743 P.2d 816 (1987), which held that the failure to request a Sherman instruction amounted to a denial of effective assistance of counsel.