Goodman v. Com.
| Decision Date | 29 January 2002 |
| Docket Number | Record No. 0222-01-3. |
| Citation | 558 S.E.2d 555,37 Va. App. 374 |
| Parties | Charles Patrick GOODMAN v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia. |
| Court | Virginia Court of Appeals |
Jane Chittom, Appellate Defender (Public Defender Commission, on briefs), for appellant.
Jennifer R. Franklin, Assistant Attorney General (Randolph A. Beales, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Present: Judges BENTON, ELDER and BUMGARDNER.
Charles Patrick Goodman (appellant) appeals from his bench trial convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) and aggravated involuntary manslaughter, in violation of Code §§ 18.2-266 and 18.2-36.1(B), respectively. On appeal, he contends that (1) the trial court erroneously admitted into evidence the results of blood alcohol concentration testing performed on blood drawn without his actual consent while he was unconscious or incoherent and apparently unable to give actual consent; (2) his prosecutions for driving under the influence and aggravated involuntary manslaughter violated double jeopardy prohibitions; and (3) even if the convictions did not impose multiple punishments for the same offense, contrary to double jeopardy prohibitions, the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for aggravated involuntary manslaughter because it failed to prove both causation and criminal negligence.
First, we hold the taking and testing of appellant's blood while he was incoherent or unconscious did not constitute an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment because the blood was obtained in a manner that substantially complied with Virginia's implied consent law. Thus, admission of the test result was not erroneous. Second, we hold appellant's convictions for both DUI and aggravated involuntary manslaughter did not violate double jeopardy principles because the convictions were obtained in a single proceeding and the legislature intended to authorize the imposition of multiple punishments in these circumstances. Finally, we hold the evidence was sufficient to establish the requisite causal connection between appellant's intoxication and the victim's death and to prove appellant's behavior constituted criminal negligence. Thus, we affirm appellant's convictions.
I.
Shortly after 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 13, 2000, appellant lost control of the vehicle he was driving and crashed into a pickup truck traveling in the opposite direction. Appellant's passenger, Lisa Wright, died from injuries sustained in the accident.
Appellant had been drinking for several hours prior to the accident. He estimated drinking eight to eleven beers between 4:00 and 8:00 p.m. but admitted he "didn't count" how many beers he drank and "it could have been more." Between about 6:00 and 8:00 p.m., appellant drank at Erma's bar. Around 8:00 p.m., appellant and Lisa Wright left Erma's bound for an establishment called Rob's. Appellant admitted "stumbl[ingj" as they left. They departed in appellant's car with appellant at the wheel, even though appellant knew he was legally prohibited from driving because he had been adjudicated a habitual offender and knew it was not safe for him to drive because he had been drinking. Appellant had experienced no mechanical problems with his vehicle prior to the accident.
The accident occurred on a four-lane, divided road with additional exit lanes or ramps bordering both the north and southbound lanes. Immediately prior to the accident, appellant's vehicle had "just come off the ... ramp" and was traveling north in the right through lane at a speed of at least thirty-five to forty miles per hour. Appellant's vehicle came in contact with the right curb and then veered left across the second northbound lane, across the grassy median, and across the left southbound lane into the right southbound lane, where it collided with a pickup truck driven by Louis Durham. Appellant's car was "coming very quickly" and was airborne, and the impact pushed Durham's pickup into the right exit lane. Appellant's car left an arc of "tire smudges" spanning a distance of 218 feet from the right curb in the northbound lanes to the right curb of the southbound access lane.
Immediately after the accident, appellant, who was pinned in the driver's seat, still had "a beer can clutched to his chest," and numerous beer cans littered the floor of the car and the ground outside appellant's door. Although appellant appeared to be "passed out," witness Annette Jeter said she "could hear a loud snoring sound" coming from him. She agreed that appellant had facial lacerations and could have had facial fractures, but she testified that, based on her fourteen years of experience as a nurse, she concluded that he was not unconscious because "normally if you are unconscious you don't have a loud snoring; that reflex is basically silent and so you don't really hear a loud sound."
When Police Officer Bonnie Oaks responded to the scene, appellant looked unconscious, but he was "gurgling something" indiscernible and was "incoherent." Oaks watched as emergency personnel removed appellant's unresponsive passenger and then cut appellant from the vehicle. Oaks had observed the beer can in appellant's hand and the cans in his car and on the ground. When Oaks leaned over appellant after he had been placed on a gurney, she "could smell the strong odor of alcohol coming from his person." Oaks then placed appellant under arrest and stayed with appellant while he was transported to the hospital until his blood was drawn for alcohol testing pursuant to the implied consent law.
Oaks tried to instruct appellant on the implied consent law while en route to the hospital, but he was incoherent. Upon their arrival at the hospital at 9:10 p.m., a registered nurse inserted an angiocath and drew several vials of appellant's blood for treatment purposes. Officer Oaks then requested a "court certified blood tech" to draw appellant's blood for testing pursuant to the implied consent law. Technician Steve Parrish arrived at about 9:15 or 9:20 p.m. and withdrew two vials of blood through the same catheter the hospital's nurse had used. Appellant remained incoherent, but he "curs[ed]" and was "somewhat combative" while his blood was being drawn. The evidence established that no fluids or other substances were administered to appellant before his blood was drawn and that only approved solutions not containing any alcohol were used to clean the site on his arm where the catheter was inserted. Parrish gave the vials of blood to Officer Oaks, who mailed one of the vials to the lab for testing and kept the other in the property vault in case appellant wished to have it tested by an independent lab. On the counter beside appellant in the hospital treatment room, next to appellant's wallet and other possessions, Oaks left an information sheet indicating that the second blood sample would be retained by police for seventy-two hours and that appellant had the right to have the sample tested by an independent lab. Detective Matthew Carter then went to appellant's home, where he told appellant's wife about appellant's right to have an independent lab test the second blood sample, and he left her a second copy of the sheet containing that same information.
Laboratory test results admitted into evidence indicated that appellant had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.29%.
At trial, appellant testified in his own defense, claiming for the first time that he thought passenger Lisa Wright had taken his wallet as they bumped into each other while leaving the bar and that she had removed the money and then pretended to have found the empty wallet on the seat of his car once they got in. He said that he confronted her about the missing money while they were driving to Rob's, that she "grabbed his wrist" and "arm... and jerked [him]," and that he did not remember anything after that until he saw his wife in the emergency room.
Appellant argued at trial that the BAC test results were inadmissible. The trial court ruled the BAC results were admissible as the product of a consensual search because the officer's actions substantially complied with the implied consent law. In the alternative, it held the nonconsensual, warrantless seizure of appellant's blood was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment because the police had probable cause to arrest and reasonably feared loss of evidence and because the blood was taken in a reasonable manner.
Appellant also argued that his conviction for both DUI and aggravated involuntary manslaughter arising out of the same act of driving under the influence would violate double jeopardy prohibitions. The trial court implicitly denied the claim when it convicted appellant of both offenses.
Finally, appellant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to prove that his intoxication caused the accident and that his behavior constituted criminal negligence. In convicting appellant of DUI and aggravated involuntary manslaughter, the trial court made the following findings:
[T]he elements of [the] offense have been proven by your conduct prior to your operation of the motor vehicle in the alcohol which you consumed prior to getting behind the wheel; the fact that you didn't have a license and the actions which you took while driving immediately prior to this accident. And that . . . show[s] a total wilful disregard of human life ... by your wilful, wanton conduct in driving.
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