State v. Brown
| Decision Date | 17 October 2022 |
| Docket Number | A-1-CA-39233 |
| Parties | STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JACOB D. BROWN, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of New Mexico |
Corrections to this opinion/decision not affecting the outcome, at the Court's discretion, can occur up to the time of publication with NM Compilation Commission. The Court will ensure that the electronic version of this opinion/decision is updated accordingly in Odyssey.
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF SANTA FE COUNTY T. Glenn Ellington, District Judge
Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General Laurie Blevins, Assistant Attorney General Santa Fe, NM for Appellee
Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender Nina Lalevic Assistant Appellate Defender Santa Fe, NM for Appellant
{¶1} Defendant Jacob Brown appeals his convictions for great bodily injury by vehicle (reckless driving) in violation of NMSA 1978, Section 66-8-101(B) (2016), leaving the scene of an accident (great bodily harm or death) in violation of NMSA 1978, Section 66-7-201 (1989), and reckless driving in violation of NMSA 1978 Section 66-8-113 (1987). On appeal, Defendant presents five issues: (1) the district court committed reversible error by denying Defendant's request that the jury be instructed on proximate cause in accordance with UJI 14-134 NMRA; (2) the district court committed plain error by admitting lapel camera footage of a witness's statement because that witness was not qualified as an expert; (3) his constitutional right to the reasonably effective assistance of counsel was violated because trial counsel failed to request an instruction on the defense of duress to the charge of leaving the scene of an accident when duress was the only available defense to that charge on the facts of this case; (4) his conviction for reckless driving must be vacated because his convictions for both great bodily harm by vehicle (reckless driving) and reckless driving violate double jeopardy; and (5) the district court failed to make findings required to support its designation of Defendant's conviction for great bodily harm by vehicle (reckless driving) as a serious violent offense, see generally State v. Branch, 2018-NMCA-031, ¶¶ 55-59, 417 P.3d 1141, and this case must therefore be remanded for the district court to make a supported determination of the issue.
{¶2} We reverse in part, affirm in part, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. First, because a reasonable jury could have found from the evidence presented that Defendant's reckless driving was not the proximate cause of the great bodily injury suffered by the victim in this case, we agree with Defendant that the district court committed reversible error by refusing Defendant's request that the jury be instructed on proximate cause consistent with UJI 14-134. Second, we conclude that, even if admission of the lapel camera footage of the witness's statement was error, that error does not require reversal of Defendant's conviction for reckless driving because it does not create "grave doubts concerning the validity of the verdict." State v. Montoya, 2015-NMSC-010, ¶ 46, 345 P.3d 1056 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Third, we decline to reach the merits of Defendant's argument that his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to request a jury instruction on the defense of duress because the argument is insufficiently developed with respect to whether Defendant was prejudiced by his counsel's allegedly deficient performance. We also decline to reach Defendant's fourth claim of error. The State concedes that the findings supporting the district court's designation of Defendant's conviction for great bodily injury by reckless driving as a serious violent offense are deficient. However, we will not assume that the district court will make a similarly pro forma finding if Defendant is convicted on remand and the crime is again designated a serious violent offense following a new trial. As for Defendant's fifth claim of error, the issue of double jeopardy will arise again if Defendant is convicted of great bodily injury by vehicle (reckless driving) on retrial, and we therefore express our agreement with the State's concession that Defendant's convictions for both reckless driving and great bodily injury by vehicle violate the constitutional prohibition of double jeopardy. See State v. Porter, 2020-NMSC-020, ¶ 20, 476 P.3d 1201.
{¶3} The charges in this case arise from an incident involving several people on bicycles and a car driven by Defendant. The following facts are undisputed. Defendant encountered a single-file group of cyclists traveling in the same direction as him while driving on a two-lane highway with no shoulder. As Defendant drove past, there was some form of exchange between him and the cyclists-either verbal or gestural-and Defendant subsequently stopped his car and reversed toward the cyclists. During the incident and for uncertain reasons, the second cyclist in the line (the victim) lost control of and crashed his bicycle, fell, and was severely injured.
{¶4} The evidence at trial was in conflict as to how the injuries occurred. Several witnesses testified that Defendant hit the victim with his moving car. The lead rider did not see whether the victim hit or was hit by Defendant's car, but the lead rider testified that the victim had run into him when he had applied his brakes while trying to go around Defendant's car on the edge of the pavement. An accident reconstructionist opined that the accident could have happened with or without contact between Defendant's car and the victim's bicycle. The reconstructionist also testified that, in his opinion, the victim's injuries occurred when the victim either had a "glancing" collision with Defendant's vehicle or went "off the roadway and kind of got stuck in the dirt" after trying "to make a maneuver to avoid the vehicle," which "was either travelling at five miles per hour or . . . parked stationary in the roadway."
{¶5} The version of events most clearly favorable to Defendant was presented to the jury in the form of lapel camera video footage of an on-scene statement Defendant gave to the police admitted as a trial exhibit. In that video, Defendant stated that, because one of the cyclists had flipped him off after he passed them, he had stopped his car, backed up, parked, and rolled his window down to "confront the situation," leaving the cyclists "room on the side" to pass his car. According to Defendant, after one of the cyclists stopped next to his car, others-riding behind that cyclist-"just started fucking tumbling," and Defendant suggested that this occurred because the cyclists were not "paying attention." Later in the video, Defendant stated that he "absolutely did not hit anybody" and it was "kind of blowing [his] mind that all those guys were tumbling" when he had given the cyclists "plenty of room on the right."
{¶6} Following the close of the evidence, defense counsel requested that the district court instruct the jury in conformity with UJI 14-134, which provides in pertinent part that the jury may only return a guilty verdict if it finds beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant's conduct was the proximate cause of the injury or harm suffered by the victim. Specifically, when so instructed, the jury must find that "[t]he injury or harm was the foreseeable result of the defendant's act" and that "[t]he act of the defendant was a significant cause of the injury or harm." Id.. The instruction specifies that "[t]he defendant's act was a significant cause of the injury or harm if it was an act which, in a natural and continuous chain of events, uninterrupted by an outside event, resulted in the injury or harm and without which the injury or harm would not have occurred." Id. The State opposed defense counsel's request, arguing that proximate causation was not in issue because, on the evidence presented, Defendant's reckless driving was the proximate cause of the victim's injuries regardless of whether Defendant "drove into" the cyclists or "stopped abruptly in front of them" and caused them to either collide with his car or to "deviate from their path and fall." Defense counsel responded that there was "a problem" as to proximate causation because the evidence showed that the lead rider had been able to stop while the victim "failed to stop and hit him."
{¶7} The district court disagreed and refused to give the instruction. In the court's view, it did not matter whether the victim's injuries were caused by "the first [cyclist] getting out of the way and the second [cyclist] striking the vehicle or [by] the stricken [cyclist] going down because he couldn't respond quick enough" because, either way, Defendant's "activity . . . [had] caused the accident." Consequently, the court instructed the jury that, to return a verdict of guilty on the charge of great bodily harm by vehicle, it had to find only that Defendant's "reckless driving caused the great bodily injury" to the victim.
{¶8} On appeal, Defendant contends that the court committed reversible error in denying his requested instruction. "The propriety of denying a jury instruction is a mixed question of law and fact that we review de novo." State v. Gaines, 2001-NMSC-036, ¶ 4, 131 N.M 347, 36 P.3d 438. When the issue is preserved, we review for reversible error. State v. Benally, 2001-NMSC-033, ¶ 12, 131 N.M. 258, 34 P.3d 1134. It is reversible error to refuse an instruction on a defendant's theory of the case if the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to giving the instruction, State v. Romero, 2005-NM...
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