State v. Anonymous (1971-3)

• Citation: 6 Conn.Cir.Ct. 393,275 A.2d 629
• Decision Date: 01 January 1971
• Court: Circuit Court of Connecticut

DEARINGTON, Judge.

Following a trial to the jury, the defendant was found guilty of the crime of negligent homicide and has taken this appeal from the judgment rendered on the verdict. In his appeal he has assigned five errors: (1) The court erred in refusing to correct the finding. (2) The court failed to set aside the verdict because it was not supported by the evidence and was based on speculation and conjecture. (3) The court erred in refusing to permit interrogatories to be submitted to the jury. (4) The court erred in refusing to charge the jury as requested. (5) The court erred in its charge in that it was inadequate in respect to the question of causation of death and failed to eliminate the issue of negligence from conjecture and speculation.

Since the assignment of error directed to the finding has not been briefed, we treat it as having been abandoned. State v. Jones, 124 Conn. 664, 665, 2 A.2d 374. We first consider the denial of the motion to set aside the verdict. On the question whether the evidence was sufficient beyond a reasonable doubt to sustain the conviction or whether the verdict was based on speculation and conjecture, we review the evidence as set forth in the transcript. Practice Book § 960.

There was evidence from which the jury could reasonably find the following facts: Following a stag party the accused and the deceased were returning home in a 1961 Chevrolet sedan owned by the accused. The vehicle was involved in a one-car accident. In the area of the accident, highway construction was in progress, and the evidence indicated that the vehicle left the highway and traveled some 148 feet, struck a power company stanchion and continued on a distance of 79 feet, striking a huge concrete block located some thirteen feet westerly of the traveled portion of the highway. The accident resulted in extensive damage to the vehicle. The front of the car was pushed in to the extent that the front fire wall and dash were jammed into the right front seat and the right door was pushed in and had to be pried open. The battery of the vehicle was found smashed approximately forty feet from the vehicle, and the right front wheel, with its inflated tire attached, was found ten feet southeasterly of the vehicle. The vehicle came to rest facing northerly in the southbound lane.

There were no witness to the accident. When the police arrived a few minutes after the accident, the body of the deceased was found in the left-hand side of the rear seat, his back against the back of the rear seat and his legs extended over the rear of the front right seat. No blood was observed on his body or clothes, although on the removal of his body a trickle of blood came from the nose. The left front door was open and the accused was found on the highway a few feet from the left front door in an unconscious condition.

In our treatment of the assignment of errors, it is unnecessary to consider other material evidence, both circumstantial and direct, including reasonable inferences which might be drawn by the jury. The accused denied that he was operating the vehicle, and much of the unreviewed evidence is related to operation and negligence, two of the elements required for conviction under the provisions of § 14-218 of the General Statutes. ¹ The remaining statutory element is the loss of a human life caused by the negligent operation of the motor vehicle. See State v. Goetz, 83 Conn. 437, 441, 76 A. 1000; State v. Campbell, 82 Conn. 671, 677, 74 A. 927; State v. Benson, 5 Conn.Cir. 316, 320, 251 A.2d 185; State v. Berkowitz, 24 Conn.Sup. 112, 116, 1 Conn.Cir. 439, 443, 186 A.2d 816. The principal contention of the accused in his brief and argument as well as in his motion for a directed verdict and his motion to set aside the verdict is predicated upon a claim that the state failed to prove that the death was caused by the negligent operation of the vehicle even if the jury concluded that the accused was the operator.

The state's burden on this element was to satisfy the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the negligent conduct of the operator-if it is assumed, without finding, that the jury could reasonably conclude that the accused was the operator-was the independent and efficient cause of the death. State v. Alterio, 154 Conn. 23, 30, 220 A.2d 451. If that requisite causal connection was not so established, there could be no conviction. It is true, as the state argues, that the jury were entitled to draw reasonable inferences, but inferences so drawn must be based on the facts proved and must be...