People v. Noble

• Decision Date: 07 March 2000
• Docket Number: Docket No. 206833.
• Citation: 238 Mich. App. 647,608 N.W.2d 123
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Robert NOBLE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

608 N.W.2d 123

238 Mich. App. 647

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Robert NOBLE, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 206833.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted August 3, 1999, at Detroit.

Decided December 3, 1999, at 9:00 a.m.

Released for Publication March 7, 2000.

Jennifer M. Granholm, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, Barry L. Shantz, Prosecuting Attorney, and William E. Molner, Assistant Attorney General, for the people.

State Appellate Defender (by Norris J. Thomas, Jr., and Sarah E. Hunter), for the defendant on appeal.

Before: HOOD, P.J., and FITZGERALD and COLLINS, JJ.

COLLINS, J.

Following a jury trial, defendant was convicted of failing to stop at the scene of a serious personal injury accident, M.C.L. § 257.617; MSA 9.2317, and operating a motor vehicle while his license was suspended, M.C.L. § 257.904(1); MSA 9.2604(1). The trial court sentenced defendant to three to five years' imprisonment for the conviction of failing to stop and to ninety days for the conviction of driving with a suspended license. Defendant appeals as of right his conviction and sentence for failing to stop at the scene of a serious personal injury accident. We affirm.

This case arises from a single-vehicle accident. On the evening of February 6, 1997, defendant left the Sky Ranch bar in a pickup truck he had borrowed from a customer of the garage where he worked. He was carrying two passengers, Jose Acevedo and Harry Dalton. After traveling a short distance, defendant lost control of the truck, which entered a treed area off the road and rolled over. Dalton was ejected from the truck and suffered severe injuries to his face and neck.¹ Defendant left Acevedo and Dalton and proceeded to his employer's residence to retrieve a tow truck from the garage there. While defendant was gone, Acevedo helped Dalton back into the pickup truck. Without informing his employer of the accident or informing him that he was taking a tow truck from his garage, defendant took the truck, returned to Acevedo and Dalton, attached the pickup truck containing Dalton to the tow truck, and drove back to the Sky Ranch bar. When he arrived there, one of the bar employees called 911. Before the ambulance arrived, defendant and Acevedo left. Defendant returned the tow truck to his employer, and at that time told him that he had borrowed the truck to pull a woman's car out of a ditch.

Dalton was transported by ambulance to a local hospital. Because that hospital was not equipped to handle his injuries, he was transferred to the University of Michigan Hospitals. Dalton died approximately four weeks later as the result of a blood clot that obstructed the circulation of his blood.

Defendant first argues that his conviction must be reversed because M.C.L. § 257.619; MSA 9.2319 is unconstitutionally vague on its face and as applied to him. Although he did not challenge the constitutionality of the statute in question in the trial court, this Court may consider whether a statute is constitutional absent challenge below. People v. Wilson, 230 Mich.App. 590, 593, 585 N.W.2d 24 (1998). This Court reviews de novo the question of a statute's constitutionality under the void-for-vagueness doctrine. Id.

Statutes and ordinances are presumed to be constitutional and are so construed unless their unconstitutionality is clearly apparent. Id. at 593-594, 585 N.W.2d 24. A statute may be challenged for vagueness on three grounds: (1) that it is overbroad and impinges on First Amendment freedoms, (2) that it does not provide fair notice of the conduct proscribed, and (3) that it is so indefinite that it confers unstructured and unlimited discretion on the trier of fact to determine whether the law has been violated. People v. Hubbard (After Remand), 217 Mich.App. 459, 484, 552 N.W.2d 493 (1996). Defendant challenges the statute's constitutionality under the second and third grounds. To give fair notice, a statute must give a person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, People v. Perez-DeLeon, 224 Mich.App. 43, 46, 568 N.W.2d 324 (1997), or required. See People v. White, 212 Mich.App. 298, 312, 536 N.W.2d 876 (1995). The statute cannot use terms that require persons of ordinary intelligence to guess its meaning and differ about its application. People v. Capriccioso, 207 Mich.App. 100, 102, 523 N.W.2d 846 (1994). A statute is sufficiently definite if its meaning can fairly be ascertained by reference to judicial interpretations, the common law, dictionaries, treatises, or the commonly accepted meanings of words. People v. Vronko, 228 Mich.App. 649, 653, 579 N.W.2d 138 (1998).

The relevant portion of M.C.L. § 257.617; MSA 9.2317, under which defendant was charged, provides as follows:

The driver of a vehicle who knows or who has reason to believe that he or she has been involved in an accident upon either public or private property, when the property is open to travel by the public, resulting in serious or aggravated injury to or death of a person shall immediately stop his or her vehicle at the scene of the accident and shall remain there until the requirements of section 619 are fulfilled. [Emphasis added.]

MCL 257.619; MSA 9.2319 provides:

The driver of any vehicle who knows or who has reason to believe that he has been involved in an accident resulting in injury to or death of any person or damage to any vehicle which is driven or attended to by any person shall give his name, address, and the registration number of the vehicle he is driving, also the name and address of the owner, and exhibit his operator's or chauffeur's license to the person struck or the driver or occupants of any vehicle collided with and shall render to any person injured in such accident reasonable assistance in securing medical aid or transportation of injured person or persons. [Emphasis added.]

Defendant argues that M.C.L. § 257.619; MSA 9.2319 is unconstitutionally vague because it provides no standard for what constitutes reasonable assistance; thus, it does not provide fair notice of the conduct required and confers unlimited discretion on the trier of fact to determine whether the law has been violated.

In People v. Thompson, 259 Mich. 109, 242 N.W. 857 (1932), our Supreme Court held that 1929 CL 4722, a predecessor to M.C.L. § 257.617; MSA 9.2317 and M.C.L. § 257.619; MSA 9.2319, was not void for vagueness. Section 30 of the 1929 statute required the driver to stop at the scene, give his name, address, registration number, the name and address of the vehicle's owner, and to show his license to the people in the car. See Thompson, supra at 112, 242 N.W. 857. Further, subsection 30(c) required the driver to

render to any person injured in such accident reasonable assistance including the carrying of such person to a physician or surgeon for medical or surgical treatment if it is apparent that such treatment is necessary or is requested by the injured person. [ Thompson, supra at 113, 242 N.W. 857 (emphasis added).]

In upholding the statute, the Court noted that provisions requiring drivers to render assistance to those injured are common to motor vehicle acts of many states. Id. at 121, 242 N.W. 857.

Defendant argues that Thompson does not control in this case because the wording of the earlier statute was more definite than the version under which defendant was convicted and because the options available to drivers required to provide reasonable assistance in 1932 were more limited and more easily defined than those currently available. We disagree. While the version of the statute upheld in Thompson states that "reasonable assistance" includes carrying an injured person to a doctor, it does not purport to provide an exhaustive list of conduct that would be considered reasonable. Moreover, in Plymouth Charter Twp. v. Hancock, 236 Mich.App. 197, 201, 600 N.W.2d 380 (1999), this Court found that the use of the reasonable person standard saved an ordinance from being impermissibly vague. Noting that the reasonable person standard is a hallmark of the Anglo-American legal system, the Hancock Court concluded that "[t]he reasonable person standard assures that `the person of ordinary intelligence [has] a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly.'" Id. at 202, 600 N.W.2d 380, quoting Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-109, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972).

Although Hancock addressed a First Amendment challenge to a township noise ordinance, its reasoning is consistent with that of the Thompson Court. The Thompson Court noted the humanitarian purpose behind the challenged statute, Thompson, supra at 123, 242 N.W. 857, and observed that "[i]t is necessary to apply the rule of reason or common understanding to many statutes in order to carry out their purpose." Id. at 117, 242 N.W. 857, quoting People v. McMurchy, 249 Mich. 147, 179, 228 N.W. 723 (1930). Furthermore, we do not believe that the availability of more sophisticated and more numerous means of assisting an accident victim today than were available at the time of Thompson vitiates the use of the reasonable person standard. The standard clearly anticipates a determination of reasonableness under the circumstances of a particular case. Accordingly, we find that M.C.L. § 257. 619; MSA 9.2319 is not unconstitutionally vague on its face.

We also conclude that the statute is not vague as applied to defendant. As discussed below, defendant's behavior could reasonably be construed as purposely avoiding the most immediate means of securing medical aid for Dalton. We find that the reasonableness standard of M.C.L. § 257.619; MSA 9.2319 put defendant on notice that such behavior does not meet the requirements of that statute.

Defendant next argues that the prosecution presented insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty of failing to render reasonable...