State v. Boyles

• Decision Date: 06 August 1997
• Docket Number: No. 19783,19783
• Citation: 1997 SD 99,567 N.W.2d 856
• Parties: STATE of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Jason BOYLES, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: South Dakota Supreme Court

Page 856

567 N.W.2d 856

1997 SD 99

STATE of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Jason BOYLES, Defendant and Appellant.

No. 19783.

Supreme Court of South Dakota.

Argued April 29, 1997.

Decided Aug. 6, 1997.

Mark Barnett, Atty. Gen., Sherri Sundem Wald, Asst. Atty. Gen., Pierre, for plaintiff and appellee.

Stanley E. Whiting of Whiting Law Office, Winner, for defendant and appellant.

KONENKAMP, Justice.

¶1 Jason Boyles was convicted of second degree murder for a hit and run homicide. After trial, three jurors said they thought the killing was accidental and expressed confusion over the court's instructions. Boyles then sought to question all the jurors under oath. May a verdict be impeached by calling jurors to testify they misunderstood or misapplied the court's instructions? Jurors cannot testify about their mental processes in deliberations. We therefore affirm the conviction and sentence.

Facts

¶2 In the early morning of August 10, 1995, while walking along the road south of White River, Ronald Stranger Horse was struck from behind by a car and killed instantly. Shortly afterwards in nearby Swift Bear community, Gloria Moran saw a red vehicle pass her house and noted damage to the front windshield on the passenger side, the top of the car, and the back window. She knew the car belonged to John Boyles, Jason Boyles' father. When the car came to a sudden stop, she saw Harvi Lynn Sharp Butte exit the passenger door. Gloria walked outside. Sharp Butte approached her, looking scared. Gloria asked who was driving the car. Sharp Butte replied, "Jason Boyles." As the car drove away, Sharp Butte asked Gloria to call law enforcement because Boyles had just run over a man out on the highway. She told Gloria not to mention her name. Gloria noticed Sharp Butte had "real fine" splinters of glass on her forehead and legs with "little bitty" cuts. Sharp Butte brushed off the glass fragments and asked Gloria if she could use her bathroom to rinse the glass from her mouth.

¶3 Brian Hart, who lived near the White River ASCS office, was awakened by a car horn and an engine revving, and looked outside to see a red car with its windshield "all bashed out." He noticed the driver was one of the "Boyles boys." Shortly, two law enforcement officers received complaint calls. Hart telephoned Mellette County Deputy Sheriff Mike Blom about 6:55 a.m. to report that a red car was spinning around in his neighborhood. Gloria Moran called White River Police Chief Joe Krogman about a possible hit-and-run south of town. When Dave Steffen arrived at the ASCS office, he saw Boyles standing near a noticeably damaged red car. Boyles appeared to have one or two recent cuts or scratches on his left forearm and was obviously intoxicated. "What's your name?" Steffen asked. "Jason," Boyles replied. "Who did this?" Steffen said. Boyles responded, "Those guys did." He pointed at the car, but no one was in it. Boyles then uttered something to the effect, "Oh man, I'm in trouble now." Krogman arrived and arrested him. During a pat down, he found the keys to the car in Boyles' pocket. Later both Krogman and Steffen would recall seeing no glass particles on Boyles' person.

¶4 With Boyles in the backseat of the patrol car, Krogman headed south on Highway 83 to investigate the alleged hit-and-run. He found Stranger Horse's lifeless body in a ditch. Believing the case was subject to federal jurisdiction, the FBI and tribal authorities were notified. Fred Bennett, an officer with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Law Enforcement Service, met Krogman and Boyles at the scene. ¹ Bennett took custody of Boyles and advised him of the Miranda warnings. Boyles responded, "I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to do it." A later blood test revealed a blood alcohol level of .262 percent. ² After the jurisdiction question was resolved, Boyles was charged in Mellette County with first degree murder in violation of SDCL 22-16-4.

¶5 Sharp Butte first told an FBI investigator that she, Boyles and others had been drinking alcohol and driving around White River together the night before the incident, but because she got into a fight with her sister at Horse Creek, four miles south of White River, she decided to walk back alone. As she walked, she said Boyles drove past her and ran down Stranger Horse; then he stopped, ordered her to get in, and later dropped her off at Swift Bear. The investigator challenged Sharp Butte's story when he observed her red, irritated legs and upper arms. Soon she admitted to lying, disclosing she had been in the car when Boyles hit Stranger Horse. She then recounted how she and Boyles, after passing Stranger Horse who was walking south in the opposite direction, discussed giving him a ride. Boyles decided against it. He turned the car around, veered onto the side of the road toward Stranger Horse as he increased speed, and said, "Well, watch this." She reached for the steering wheel to redirect the car, but Boyles pushed her hand away. When the car struck him, Stranger Horse bounded off the hood, hit the windshield on the passenger side, and glanced off the top of the car. Sharp Butte said Boyles "just smiled and like chuckled a little bit." Frightened, she repeatedly told Boyles to take her home. He drove to Swift Bear, and Sharp Butte jumped out near the Moran home. When she told Boyles she was going home, he threatened to run her over, too. She had never seen him behave this way before.

¶6 Boyles' version was quite different both in content and method of revelation. He could not testify about the incident, as he had no conscious recollection due to an alcoholic blackout. To prepare his defense, therefore, he was hypnotized by Dr. Matt Stricherz of the University of South Dakota. Under hypnosis, Boyles recounted the incident, but once "out of trance" had no memory of the statements he made while hypnotized. Thus he was effectively "unavailable to testify." SDCL 19-16-29 (Fed.R.Evid. 804(a)(3)). Stricherz was allowed to report at trial Boyles' hypnotically elicited rendition. ³ He testified Boyles said Sharp Butte was driving when Stranger Horse was struck. Boyles had stopped the car to urinate, and while outside, Sharp Butte took the wheel and refused to let him drive. It was she who said, "Watch this," as she swerved onto the shoulder and hit Stranger Horse. Boyles described how as a passenger, glass flew all over him from the impact on the windshield. According to Boyles, Sharp Butte then became scared and let him drive.

¶7 Investigators found no skid marks on the road, signifying the car made no detectable avoidance maneuvers before Stranger Horse was hit. The only marks found were those made by the body, which an investigator believed landed in the ditch at forty-four miles per hour. Based on these measurements, it was estimated the car was traveling at approximately sixty to sixty-five miles per hour when it hit Stranger Horse. A glass analyst determined that because the body impacted on the right side of the windshield, the person in the passenger's seat would have been hit with most of the shattered glass.

¶8 In June 1996, a Mellette County jury found Boyles not guilty of first degree murder, but guilty of second degree murder. ⁴ About a week after trial, a juror happened to comment about the verdict to someone in a Winner, South Dakota, law office. An attorney who overheard the remarks, Theresa M. Maule, later submitted an affidavit reporting she could not remember the conversation verbatim, but recalled the juror said:

[W]hen they were debating the issue everyone knew that it was an accident and that [defendant] certainly did not mean to kill the other person. However, they had a hard time deciding what to sentence him to. Since they knew it was not murder they settled for manslaughter. At the time she did not know it was a life sentence without parole and she and the other jurors did not understand that he would be spending life in prison.

Sworn statements were then obtained from three jurors: F.M., A.C. and L.K. Each signed nearly identical affidavits stating:

[T]here were several jurors [one affidavit stated "4 jurors"], myself included, who were of the opinion that the incident in question was an accident. That no juror orally expressed an opinion claiming the incident was anything but an accident. The jury was unsure as to the meaning of several words and phrases contained in the instructions ... [specifically] the meaning of the phrase "evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life." The definition reached by the jury was that "evincing a depraved mind," meant being in an altered state of mind, such as being intoxicated. The jury concluded that since [Boyles] was operating a motor vehicle while in an altered state of mind, [he] automatically "evinced a depraved mind, regardless of human life."

¶9 Two other jurors, J.L. and R.S., notified the trial court they were "concerned about contacts with jurors by the defense, and ... asked [the judge] to do something." The court granted the prosecutor's motion to prohibit counsel from talking to more jurors. Based upon the information imparted in these affidavits, Boyles filed motions to allow post-trial voir dire of each juror, for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and for a new trial. All motions were denied, and he was sentenced to mandatory life in prison. Boyles appeals, contending he should have been permitted to examine the jurors, and the trial court abused its discretion when it allowed the jury to view the damaged windshield because it had deteriorated while sitting outside unprotected.

Analysis and Decision

¶10 1. Impeachment of Jury Verdict under Rule 606(b)

¶11 During deliberations, several jurors, possibly four, expressed the opinion Boyles hit Stranger Horse by accident. Under SDCL 22-16-7, "Homicide is murder in the second degree when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life,...