State v. Cummings, 54

• Decision Date: 04 November 1980
• Docket Number: No. 54,54
• Citation: 271 S.E.2d 277,301 N.C. 374
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. John W. CUMMINGS and Willie Mae Ray Cummings.

Page 277

271 S.E.2d 277

301 N.C. 374

STATE of North Carolina v. John W. CUMMINGS and Willie Mae Ray Cummings.

No. 54.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Nov. 4, 1980.

Rufus L. Edmisten, Atty. Gen., by James L. Stuart, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State.

James R. Parish, Asst. Public Defender, Fayetteville, for defendants-appellants.

HUSKINS, Justice:

Failure of the court to nonsuit constitutes each defendant's first assignment of error.

A motion to nonsuit requires the trial court to consider the evidence in its light most favorable to the State, take it as true and give the State the benefit of every reasonable inference to be drawn therefrom. State v. Goines, 273 N.C. 509, 160 S.E.2d 469 (1968). Whether the evidence is direct, circumstantial, or both, if there is evidence from which a jury could find that the offense charged has been committed and that defendant committed it, the motion to nonsuit should be overruled. State v. Haywood, 295 N.C. 709, 249 S.E.2d 429 (1978); State v. McKinney, 288 N.C. 113, 215 S.E.2d 578 (1975).

Defendants' motions for nonsuit are grounded upon the contention that the evidence is insufficient to establish a causal relation between the victim's death and the assaults allegedly made upon him by defendants. It is argued, therefore, that the motions for nonsuit should have been allowed. For reasons which follow, we hold defendants' position is unsound.

To warrant a conviction in this case, the State must establish that the acts of the defendants were a proximate cause of the death. "(T)he act of the accused need not be the immediate cause of death. He is legally accountable if the direct cause is the natural result of the criminal act." State v. Minton, 234 N.C. 716, 722, 68 S.E.2d 844, 848 (1952); State v. Everett, 194 N.C. 442, 140 S.E. 22 (1927). There may be more than one proximate cause and criminal responsibility arises when the act complained of caused or directly contributed to the death. State v. Luther, 285 N.C. 570, 206 S.E.2d 238 (1974); State v. Horner, 248 N.C. 342, 103 S.E.2d 694 (1958).

When the State's evidence in this case is tested by the foregoing rules, it suffices to show beyond a reasonable doubt that one of the proximate causes of the death of Oscar Melvin is attributable to the assaults made upon him by defendants. The State's evidence is sufficient to support the following findings: The victim Oscar Melvin was highly intoxicated at the time defendants assaulted him and his intoxication affected his ability to expel vomitus from his mouth; his gag reflexes were greatly inhibited, if not inoperative, by reason of his intoxication; and he was more likely to become strangled by the inhalation of his vomit when lying on his back in a prone position. The jury could further find from the State's evidence that prior to the assault by defendants, the victim was in an upright position, able to run and move about freely, and was not vomiting prior to being struck in the stomach and on the head by defendants. When defendants struck him with a board and a broken bottle about the head and body, knocking him to the sidewalk, the victim then lay flat on his back in an unconscious condition. Defendants made no effort to aid him but left the scene and returned to "Rick's house." Shortly thereafter, when Officer Burgess arrived, Melvin was still on his back, his eyes glassed over, taking his last dying breaths. These permissible findings are supported by the evidence. It necessarily follows, therefore, that the evidence was sufficient to carry to the jury the question whether the wounds inflicted upon the deceased by the defendants were a proximate cause of the victim's death. This is true because the acts of the defendants need not be the immediate cause of the death. They are legally accountable if the immediate cause of death is the natural result of their criminal acts. State v. Knight, 247 N.C. 754, 102 S.E.2d 259 (1958); State v. Minton, supra. Compare State v. Hargett, 255 N.C. 412, 121 S.E.2d 589 (1961), in which the evidence is markedly analogous to the evidence before us in this case.

We hold the evidence is sufficient under the laws of North Carolina for a rational jury to find defendants guilty of involuntary manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt. Compare State v. Jones, 290 N.C. 292, 225 S.E.2d 549 (1976), in which it was held that a victim's death immediately resulting from improper or unskilled treatment by attending physicians was no defense to a charge of homicide against one who had inflicted a dangerous wound which necessitated the medical treatment, since neither negligent treatment nor neglect of an injury excuses a wrongdoer unless the treatment or neglect is the sole cause of death. Defendants' first assignment of error is overruled.

Defendants also assign as error the trial court's definition of "an unlawful act" and of "criminal negligence" and the application of those definitions to the lesser included offense of involuntary manslaughter. This constitutes their final assignment of error.

The record reveals that the trial judge defined "involuntary manslaughter" to be "the unintentional killing of a human being by an unlawful act and not amounting to a felony or by an act done in a criminally negligent way." This definition of involuntary manslaughter is taken from Pattern Jury Instructions for Criminal Cases in North Carolina, Criminal 206.50 (Replacement April 1973), and is a correct definition of that crime. State v. Wrenn, 279 N.C. 676, 185 S.E.2d 129 (1971). Defendants do not challenge this definition.

The court then charged:

For you to find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter, the State must prove two things beyond a reasonable doubt: first that the defendant whose case you then have under consideration acted unlawfully or in a criminally negligent way. (It is an unlawful act for one person to strike another person in the chin and jaw and head with a board when not in his own...