Commonwealth v. Hardy

• Decision Date: 12 June 2019
• Docket Number: SJC-12637
• Citation: 482 Mass. 416,123 N.E.3d 773
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Suzanne HARDY.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

482 Mass. 416

123 N.E.3d 773

COMMONWEALTH

v.Suzanne HARDY.

SJC-12637

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden..

Argued February 5, 2019

Decided June 12, 2019

Marissa Elkins, Amherst, for the defendant.

Shane T. O'Sullivan, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Present: Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.

CYPHER, J.

In June 2014, the defendant, Suzanne Hardy, was involved in a multivehicle accident in Brimfield in which her two nephews -- four year old Dylan Riel and sixteen month old Jayce Garcia -- were fatally injured.¹ The defendant and her four year old son were seriously injured, but survived. At the time of the accident, Dylan was seated in the rear middle seat of the defendant's four-door sedan with the seat belt fastened, but without an age and size appropriate child safety "booster" seat, and Jayce was seated in the rear passenger's side position, in a front-facing safety seat with the straps set too high, rather than an age and size appropriate rear-facing safety seat.

The defendant was indicted on two counts of manslaughter, G. L. c. 265, § 13 ; two counts of negligent motor vehicle homicide, G. L. c. 90, § 24G (b ) ; one count of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, G. L. c. 265, § 15A (b ) ; and three counts of reckless endangerment of a child, G. L. c. 265, § 13L. The defendant was convicted of manslaughter of Dylan, reckless endangerment of Dylan, and negligent motor vehicle homicide of Dylan and Jayce.

On appeal, the defendant raises two arguments. First, she contends that there was insufficient evidence to support the convictions of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child relating to Dylan. Second, she argues that, during closing argument, the Commonwealth improperly argued inferences not supported by the evidence and appealed to the passions and sympathies of the jury. We conclude that there was insufficient evidence to show that the defendant's actions amounted to wanton or reckless conduct, and as such, we vacate the convictions of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment of Dylan. The defendant's two convictions of negligent homicide are affirmed.²

1. Background. The defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence; therefore, we summarize the facts in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, see Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 676-677, 393 N.E.2d 370 (1979), reserving pertinent facts for the discussion of the arguments. On the morning of June 20, 2014, Nicole Riel, mother of Dylan and Jayce, met the defendant in a parking lot to leave her children with the defendant.³ Riel had to work, so the defendant planned to take the children to Dylan's baseball practice later that afternoon, and Riel planned to meet them there when she got out of work. The defendant had two children of her own -- a four year old son and a two year old daughter. The defendant's children's safety seats were installed in her vehicle, a four-door sedan, but her children were not with her when she picked up Dylan and Jayce. Riel secured Dylan, the four year old, into a booster seat and placed Jayce, the sixteen month old, in a front-facing safety seat in the defendant's vehicle.⁴

The defendant drove the children to her home, where she lived with her parents, so that they could play. Meanwhile, the defendant and her parents decided to leave for vacation with Dylan that day. The defendant had planned to take her two children and Dylan to meet her parents at their destination the following day, but decided to leave that day instead, as Dylan's baseball practice was canceled.

After her plans changed, the defendant decided to drive to Riel's house to return Jayce to his mother and pick up an overnight bag for Dylan to take on vacation. As the defendant placed her two nephews and her son in her vehicle, her father observed that there were only two safety seats in her vehicle's back seat. He took a booster seat out of his wife's vehicle and placed it against the rear driver's side door of the defendant's vehicle. The defendant picked up the booster seat, opened her vehicle's rear door, looked into the back seat, closed the door, and placed the booster seat in the trunk of her vehicle.

When the defendant left, her son was in the rear driver's side of the vehicle in his booster seat, Jayce was in the front-facing safety seat behind the front passenger's seat with the straps set at an improper height, and Dylan was buckled into the rear middle seat with a shoulder and lap belt but no booster seat. The defendant's son was about one month older than Dylan, but Dylan was larger -- he was forty-four inches tall and weighed fifty-four pounds.⁵

At around 4:30 P.M. , the defendant was driving approximately the speed limit, fifty-five miles per hour, on a four-lane highway in Brimfield. This stretch of the highway was relatively flat; had four lanes, two eastbound and two westbound; and was divided in the middle by a double yellow line. A dump truck with an attached trailer was stopped in the left-hand eastbound lane ahead, as the driver waited to make a left turn into a parking lot. The truck was stopped for approximately thirty seconds to one minute, while the driver waited for westbound traffic to clear in order to make the turn. The truck's trailer attachment's turn signal was on. The defendant's vehicle approached the truck from behind without slowing down, then quickly swerved into the right eastbound lane and struck the guardrail on the right side of the road. It crossed both eastbound lanes in front of the truck and then crossed the double yellow line into oncoming westbound traffic. The defendant's vehicle struck the back of a sport utility vehicle in the left westbound lane before hitting a sedan traveling in the right westbound lane head-on. The two vehicles were traveling between fifty and fifty-nine miles per hour at the time of impact. Two State police accident reconstruction experts testified that the defendant did not apply her brakes at any time leading up to the collision. Dylan and Jayce did not survive the crash.^{6 ,7}

At trial, the Commonwealth's medical examiner determined the cause of death was the same for each child -- blunt force trauma of the head

and neck with atlanto-occipital disarticulation. This type of injury occurs when "the head and the body are not in synchronization," such as when the body is restrained or stationary and the head continues to move forward at a high speed causing it to become unattached from the spine internally. The medical examiner was not an expert in child safety seats and could not say whether Jayce would have survived if his seat had been rear-facing or whether Dylan would have survived if he had been in a booster seat.

One of the accident reconstruction experts testified that all three child safety seats were capable of being properly installed in the back seat. According to State law and manufacturer recommendations, based on their ages and weights, Dylan should have been in a booster seat and Jayce, although in a proper safety seat, should have been rear-facing. The accident reconstruction expert testified to the safety benefits of a booster seat and how it can position a child so that the seat belt aligns with the strong points of the body. If properly used, a booster seat allows the body to "slow down and ride down ... collision forces and make [a crash] survivable." In addition, the expert testified that weather, solar glare, and mechanical defects were not factors in this collision. In the expert's opinion, a "normal person" in the defendant's position would have been able to avoid the collision by perceiving the trailer ahead of her, and the crash was the result of the defendant's inattentiveness to the road in front of her.

2. Sufficiency of the evidence. The defendant moved for required findings of not guilty on all counts at the close of the Commonwealth's case and again at the close of all evidence. The motion was allowed as to one count of reckless endangerment of a child, as to the defendant's son, at the close of the Commonwealth's evidence, but the motions were otherwise denied. On appeal, the defendant contends that the judge erred when he denied the motions and ruled, both during trial and again after the jury's verdicts, that securing Dylan with a regular seat belt, but not placing him in a booster seat, was a legally sufficient basis to convict her of manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child. The Commonwealth contends that the defendant's conduct created a substantial risk of bodily injury sufficient to satisfy the elements of recklessness for both involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child.

The elements of the crime of manslaughter are derived from the common law. Commonwealth v. Carter, 481 Mass. 352, 364, 115 N.E.3d 559 (2019). In Carter, we reiterated the long-standing definition of manslaughter as "an unlawful homicide, unintentionally caused ... by an act which constitutes such a disregard of probable harmful consequencesto another as to constitute wanton or reckless conduct" (citation omitted). Id. Wanton or reckless conduct "involves a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result to another," and depends on whether the defendant realized the risk of harm or if a reasonable person, who knew what the defendant knew, would have realized such risk. Commonwealth v. Earle, 458 Mass. 341, 347 & n.9, 937 N.E.2d 42 (2010), quoting Commonwealth v. Welansky, 316 Mass. 383, 399, 55 N.E.2d 902 (1944).

As a general rule, the requirement of "wanton or reckless conduct" may be satisfied by either the commission of an intentional act or an intentional omission where there is a duty to act. Commonwealth v. Pugh, 462 Mass. 482, 497, 969 N.E.2d 672 (2012). "To constitute wanton or reckless conduct, as distinguished from mere negligence, grave danger to others must have been apparent, and the defendant must have chosen to run the...