State v. Hartley
| Decision Date | 23 April 2018 |
| Docket Number | A17-1199 |
| Parties | State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Matthew Keely Hartley, Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).
Affirmed
Scott County District Court
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
Ronald Hocevar, Scott County Attorney, Todd P. Zettler, Assistant County Attorney, Shakopee, Minnesota (for respondent)
Evan H. Weiner, Timothy D. Webb, Neve Webb, PLLC, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Peterson, Presiding Judge; Worke, Judge; and Ross, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Matthew Hartley drove his motorcycle into a woman, killing her, and then he rode away without investigating. Hartley appeals from his convictions of criminal vehicular homicide, arguing that the evidence was insufficient, that his attorney's midtrial illness required a mistrial, and that erroneous evidentiary rulings require reversal. Because the evidence supports the convictions and Hartley's other arguments are unpersuasive, we affirm.
Matthew Hartley and a friend left an Elko New Market bar at its 2:00 a.m. closing time on a September 2016 morning. They revved their motorcycles loudly and sped from the parking lot and onto a gravel road. It was rainy and the road was unlit.
Eastward down that gravel road Molly Mahowald stood talking with her friend, Brady Frahm, beside Mahowald's pickup truck, which was parked to the side. Witnesses walking on the road estimated that Hartley passed them moving in Mahowald's direction at about 50 or 60 miles per hour. The unposted speed limit was 30 miles per hour. Hartley was driving on the left side of the road, which is the same side where Mahowald's truck was parked.
Hartley's motorcycle swept near Frahm, almost hitting the truck, and it struck Mahowald. Frahm heard the thud and saw Mahowald hit the ground. He heard grinding as the motorcycle went into a slide. Frahm began performing CPR on Mahowald.
Mahowald's boyfriend, Aaron Deer, was standing on a driveway nearby. He did not see the collision with Mahowald, but he did see Hartley's motorcycle sliding on the ground. He ran to help Hartley off the ground. Hartley did not investigate, hopped on his motorcycle, and rode away in less than a minute after the collision. Deer then saw thatMahowald was down, and he joined Frahm in attempting CPR. Mahowald's injuries were severe, and she died.
Hartley hid his motorcycle behind some bushes in a cornfield. He called for a friend to pick him up, and he returned to retrieve the motorcycle after sunrise. Hartley took the motorcycle to his home and hid it haphazardly beneath a canoe in his yard rather than park it in his garage. He hid the bike's saddlebags underneath a car. Police found the motorcycle and saddlebags, and investigators found Mahowald's hair lodged in the motorcycle's left-front fairing, near a crack in the fairing's fiberglass.
The state charged Hartley with criminal vehicular homicide based on gross negligence, vehicular homicide based on drunk driving, and vehicular homicide based on leaving the scene after a collision. Eyewitnesses testified to the facts just described. The state's accident reconstruction expert testified that the motorcycle's slide on its right side had to have been caused by its colliding with an object on its left side. He estimated that Hartley's motorcycle was moving up to 43 miles per hour after it collided with Mahowald and went into its slide. The prosecutor introduced a photograph of Mahowald wearing military fatigues and elicited testimony from Mahowald's younger sister about Mahowald's military service. The state also introduced a video recording of Hartley outside the bar and evidence of two of Hartley's 17 previous criminal convictions.
Hartley took the stand in his own defense. He said he saw Mahowald and braked and leaned to the right to avoid hitting her. He claimed not to have seen the collision and said that he had no memory from the moment he leaned away from Mahowald and the moment he was getting up from the ground. He maintained that he left the scene notknowing that he had struck Mahowald. He testified that he hid his motorcycle in his yard because he feared being ticketed for driving without a license.
Near the end of Hartley's direct examination, his defense attorney, Robert Miller, became ill, telling the district court, Miller finished the direct examination but was later taken by ambulance to a hospital where he was diagnosed as having an ulcer. The district court continued the trial and resumed after Miller had recovered following a 13-day delay. During the delay, the state located a witness who would testify that he saw Hartley drinking alcohol before the collision. Hartley had denied drinking. Hartley moved unsuccessfully for a mistrial.
The jury acquitted Hartley of criminal vehicular homicide based on drunk driving but found him guilty of the charge based both on gross negligence and leaving the scene.
Hartley appeals.
Hartley argues that the evidence does not support his convictions. We review a challenge based on the alleged insufficiency of the evidence by examining the record to see whether a jury could reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty, giving due regard for the burden of proof. State v. Stein, 776 N.W.2d 709, 714 (Minn. 2010). We more strictly construe the evidence in a conviction that resulted from circumstantial evidence. See State v. Anderson, 784 N.W.2d 320, 329 (Minn. 2010). We first identify the circumstances proved by disregarding evidence inconsistent with the verdict. State v. Harris, 895 N.W.2d 592, 601 (Minn. 2017). We then consider the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from those circumstances. Id. We will reverse if the circumstancesproved support a reasonable hypothesis inconsistent with guilt. See State v. Johnson, 173 Minn. 543, 545-46, 217 N.W. 683, 684 (1928). We apply this standard first to Hartley's leaving-the-scene conviction and then his grossly-negligent-operation conviction.
To convict Hartley of criminal vehicular homicide for leaving the scene, the state had to meet all the elements in the statute:
The driver of any motor vehicle involved in a collision shall immediately stop the vehicle at the scene of the collision, or as close to the scene as possible, and reasonably investigate what was struck. If the driver knows or has reason to know the collision resulted in injury to or death of another, the driver in every event shall remain at the scene of the collision until the driver has fulfilled the requirements of this section as to the giving of information.
Minn. Stat. § 169.09, subd. 1 (2016). Hartley argues that there was insufficient evidence to convict him under this statute because the evidence did not show beyond a reasonable doubt that, before he left the scene, he knew that he had collided with a person or vehicle because he really believed that he had collided only with the ground. Hartley misconstrues the mens rea requirement.
What the state was required to prove regarding Hartley's knowledge is a question of statutory interpretation, and we analyze the question de novo. State v. Al-Naseer, 734 N.W.2d 679, 683 (Minn. 2007). We apply the statute's plain meaning if the language is clear and unambiguous. Id. at 684. Although the wording is not precise, the statute is arranged clearly enough to reveal its meaning, particularly when it is considered in the context of Al-Naseer, the case Hartley especially relies on.
Minn. Stat. § 169.09, subd. 1 (2006). When this court considered that statute in Al-Naseer's appeal, we read into it a mens rea element requiring the state to prove that the driver knew that he was in a collision and that he also "knew or had reason to know that the accident resulted in bodily injury to or death of a person." State v. Al-Naseer, 721 N.W.2d 623, 626 (Minn. App. 2006), rev'd Al-Naseer, 734 N.W.2d at 688-89. The supreme court disagreed and imposed a more difficult standard of proof, requiring the state to prove that the defendant who caused the collision actually knew that he was involved in a collision resulting in immediately demonstrable injury. Al-Naseer, 734 N.W.2d at 688-89.
Soon after the supreme court's decision, the legislature amended the statute, settling on a mens rea requirement that essentially tracks this court's interpretation of the earlier statute rather than the supreme court's interpretation. The key language is now divided into two sentences. The first sentence states that a "driver of any motor vehicle involved in acollision shall immediately stop the vehicle at the scene of the collision." Minn. Stat. § 169.09, subd. 1. This language resembles the 2006 statute discussed in Al-Naseer in that it does not expressly identify any particular mens rea standard. So we apply Al-Naseer's holding to that element, requiring the state to prove that the defendant actually knew he was involved in...
To continue reading
Request your trial