Com. v. Huggins

Decision Date19 November 2003
Citation836 A.2d 862,575 Pa. 395
PartiesCOMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant v. Gary R. HUGGINS, Appellee.
CourtPennsylvania Supreme Court

Elmer D. Christine, Mark Peter Pazuhanich, Stroudsburg, for appellant, Com. of PA.

Lawrence A.J. Spegar, for appellee, Gary R. Huggins.

Before: CAPPY, CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN, SAYLOR and EAKIN, JJ.

OPINION

Justice CASTILLE.

The issue in this appeal is whether a prima facie case of involuntary manslaughter was made where the Commonwealth demonstrated that appellee fell asleep at the wheel of his speeding 15-passenger van, which was overloaded with twenty-one children and three adults, leading to a collision on the highway and the deaths of two children. We hold that the Commonwealth established a prima facie case of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and, accordingly, we reverse the courts below and remand for trial.

According to the evidence produced by the Commonwealth at the preliminary hearing, on July 10, 1998, at approximately 5:15 p.m. on a clear and sunny day, appellee was driving a Ford passenger van eastbound on Interstate Highway 80 in the Pocono Mountains when, by his own admission, he fell asleep. Appellee claimed he awoke just before the van collided with the rear end of a Saturn sedan driven by Charles P. Bayly. The front left section of the van struck the right rear portion of the Saturn, after which the van veered sharply to the right, crossed the right travel lane, and went onto the right shoulder of the road where it hit an embankment. The van rode up the embankment, flipped, and came to rest on its passenger side, half on the right shoulder of the highway, and half on the right lane of travel. At the time of the collision, Mr. Bayly's Saturn was in the left lane of travel, traveling at approximately sixty to sixty-five miles per hour (m.p.h.). Mr. Bayly testified that he did not see appellee's van until the collision.

There were twenty-four occupants in the van, including appellee, twenty-one of whom were minors. All but one of the minors was under the age of twelve. Two of the children were killed in the crash and numerous others were taken to various hospitals with injuries. Because the van had only fifteen passenger seats, some of the twenty-three passengers were crowded into seats while others were seated on the floor. A subsequent investigation by an accident reconstruction expert revealed that, at the time of the collision, none of the passengers was restrained by a seatbelt and appellee's approximate speed was at least seventy-eight m.p.h., well in excess of the posted speed limit of fifty-five m.p.h.

On August 16, 1999, appellee was charged with twenty-three counts of aggravated assault, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2702(a)(1), two counts of involuntary manslaughter, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2504(a), two counts of homicide by vehicle, 75 Pa.C.S. § 3732, twenty-three counts of recklessly endangering another person, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2705, and various summary driving offenses. Following the preliminary hearing, all of the charges were bound over for trial. On December 29, 1999, appellee filed an omnibus pretrial motion requesting, inter alia, that the trial court grant habeas corpus relief and dismiss the charges of aggravated assault, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment, and homicide by vehicle because the Commonwealth had failed to establish a prima facie case. In addition, appellee sought to suppress any evidence relating to whether seatbelts had been used by the passengers in the van.

On February 16, 2000, the trial court granted the motion to suppress evidence regarding seat belts, holding that any such evidence was barred by 75 Pa.C.S. § 4581(f).1 Turning to appellee's request for habeas corpus relief, the court held that the Commonwealth had met its prima facie burden for the charges of homicide by vehicle, but dismissed the charges of aggravated assault, involuntary manslaughter, and reckless endangerment. With respect to the dismissal of the involuntary manslaughter charges—the ruling at issue on this appeal—the trial court held that the Commonwealth had failed to make out a prima facie case for the mens rea (recklessness or gross negligence) necessary to support such a charge.

The Commonwealth appealed, challenging the suppression of the seatbelt evidence and the dismissal of the involuntary manslaughter charges.2 A divided en banc panel of the Superior Court affirmed in part and reversed in part in a published opinion. Commonwealth v. Huggins, 790 A.2d 1042 (Pa.Super.2002). The panel majority, in an opinion by Judge Musmanno, reversed the suppression order regarding usage of the seatbelts, finding that the order was overbroad, but affirmed the dismissal of the involuntary manslaughter charges, finding that the Commonwealth had failed to show that appellee had consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk that death would result from his actions. The majority recognized that the involuntary manslaughter statute appears to set forth disjunctive bases for establishing the mental state necessary for conviction—i.e., recklessness or gross negligence. The majority noted, however, that this Court had suggested that the terms were equivalent.3 Accordingly, the majority examined the sufficiency of the Commonwealth's proof of recklessness, ultimately concluding that affirmance was appropriate because the Commonwealth had failed to prove that appellee "had reason to believe that he was dangerously tired before falling asleep."

Judge Lally-Green filed a concurring and dissenting opinion, joined by Judges Joyce and Stevens, joining in the majority's disposition of the seatbelt evidence suppression issue, but dissenting on the involuntary manslaughter issue. Accepting the majority's equivalence of recklessness and gross negligence for purposes of the appeal,4 Judge Lally-Green noted that the Crimes Code's definition of "recklessness" contemplates that the actor engaged in a conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element at issue exists or will result from his conduct. Huggins, 790 A.2d at 1050-51 (Lally-Green, J., concurring and dissenting). "Conscious disregard" of a risk, in turn, involves first becoming aware of the risk and then choosing to proceed in spite of the risk. Id. at 1051. Judge Lally-Green further noted that Pennsylvania courts had determined that falling asleep at the wheel can constitute criminal negligence for purposes of the homicide by vehicle and careless driving statutes but, in her view, it was an open question whether, in some circumstances, falling asleep at the wheel alone might also support, a finding of recklessness. Id. In this regard, Judge Lally-Green cited to court decisions recognizing that people generally fall asleep in stages and with warnings. See Commonwealth v. Cathey, 435 Pa.Super. 162, 645 A.2d 250, 251-52 (1994)

(quoting Bernosky v. Greff, 350 Pa. 59, 38 A.2d 35, 36 (1944)). Judge Lally-Green noted that in her view "by continuing to drive after receiving the warning signs of sleep, a person does indeed consciously disregard a substantial risk of death on our highways." Huggins, 790 A.2d at 1052. Judge Lally-Green further reasoned that, even if it is not necessarily reckless to fall asleep at the wheel in every instance, the additional facts attending this case—speeding at the wheel of a van overloaded with people, the majority of whom were children not wearing safety restraints—provided ample evidence from which a jury could reasonably conclude that appellee had acted recklessly. Id.

President Judge Emeritus McEwen filed a concurring and dissenting statement joining the majority on the disposition of the involuntary manslaughter issue but dissenting from the reversal of the suppression order. Judge Cavanaugh filed a dissenting statement, noting his view that the evidence proffered by the Commonwealth was sufficient to support verdicts of involuntary manslaughter and that the seat belt evidence was not the proper subject of a motion to suppress.

This Court granted the Commonwealth's petition for allowance of appeal from that portion of the Superior Court order upholding the dismissal of the involuntary manslaughter charges. The question of the evidentiary sufficiency of the Commonwealth's prima facie case is one of law as to which this Court's review is plenary.

The Crimes Code defines involuntary manslaughter as follows:

A person is guilty of involuntary manslaughter when as a direct result of the doing of an unlawful act in a reckless or grossly negligent manner, or the doing of a lawful act in a reckless or grossly negligent manner, he causes the death of another person.

18 Pa.C.S. § 2504(a). Involuntary manslaughter is the least culpable level of homicide defined in the Crimes Code, see id. §§ 2501-2504, and is commensurately graded lower than other forms of homicide: i.e., it is a misdemeanor of the first degree, unless the victim is under the age of twelve and was in the care, custody or control of the person who caused the death, in which case it is graded as a felony of the second degree. Id. § 2504(b).

At the pre-trial stage of a criminal prosecution, it is not necessary for the Commonwealth to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather, its burden is merely to put forth a prima facie case of the defendant's guilt. Commonwealth v. McBride, 528 Pa. 153, 595 A.2d 589, 591 (1991). A prima facie case exists when the Commonwealth produces evidence of each of the material elements of the crime charged and establishes sufficient probable cause to warrant the belief that the accused committed the offense. Id. (citing Commonwealth v. Wojdak, 502 Pa. 359, 466 A.2d 991 (1983)). The evidence need only be such that, if presented at trial and accepted as true, the judge would be warranted in permitting the case to go to the jury. Commonwealth v. Marti, 779 A.2d 1177, 1180 (Pa.Super.2001). Moreo...

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