State v. Hatfield

• Decision Date: 05 February 2009
• Docket Number: No. 2008-0045.,2008-0045.
• Parties: The STATE of Ohio, Appellant, v. HATFIELD, Appellee.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

901 N.E.2d 813

121 Ohio St.3d 1201

2009-Ohio-353

The STATE of Ohio, Appellant, v. HATFIELD, Appellee.

No. 2008-0045.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted December 16, 2008.

Decided February 5, 2009.

APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Ashtabula County, No. 2006-A-0033, 2007-Ohio-7130.

Thomas L. Sartini, Ashtabula County Prosecuting Attorney, and Shelley M. Pratt, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant.

Ashtabula County Public Defender, Inc., and Joseph A. Humpolick, for appellee.

Dennis P. Will, Lorain County Prosecuting Attorney, and Billie Jo Belcher, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, urging reversal for amicus curiae, Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association.

{¶ 1} The cause is dismissed, sua sponte, as having been improvidently accepted.

PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, LANZINGER, and CUPP, JJ., concur.

MOYER, C.J., and O'CONNOR and O'DONNELL, JJ., dissent.

O'CONNOR, J., dissenting.

{¶ 2} I disagree strongly with the court's decision to dismiss this appeal as having been improvidently accepted.

{¶ 3} I believe that the jury's prerogative to decide matters fairly, using the evidence admitted by the court and common knowledge garnered outside the courtroom, should be respected. Because there was sufficient, probative evidence from which the jurors could find that Sonny Hatfield acted recklessly by operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of cocaine, I would reverse the decision of the court of appeals and reinstate Hatfield's conviction for aggravated vehicular homicide.

I

{¶ 4} At approximately 5:35 p.m. on February 24, 2004, vehicles driven by appellee, Sonny Hatfield, and Sharon Kingston collided at an intersection in Plymouth Township. Kingston died at the scene due to injuries she sustained in the accident. Hatfield was more fortunate, suffering only minor injuries.

{¶ 5} At the time of the accident, the roadways were dry, and there were no adverse weather conditions. The State Highway Patrol trooper who questioned Hatfield after the accident testified that Hatfield admitted that he had failed to stop at a stop sign before proceeding into the intersection where he struck Kingston's car on the front left side. In fact, Hatfield did not remember that there was a stop sign at the intersection. The trooper further testified that Hatfield admitted knowing that his driver's license was suspended and that his vehicle was not insured.

{¶ 6} Hatfield further told police that he uses marijuana daily, that he consumes alcohol four to five times a week, and that he uses cocaine "a few times a week." Hatfield also admitted to police that he had been at a party until 6:00 a.m. that day and that at the party, he had consumed one-half ounce of marijuana, seven to nine "lines" of cocaine, and eight to nine mixed drinks. He stated that he had slept from about 6:30 that morning until about 2:00 p.m. Hatfield denied having used alcohol or drugs in the interval between leaving the party and the accident, and he denied having used alcohol or drugs in the time between the accident and his interview with the police.

{¶ 7} Hatfield initially refused to provide a blood sample at the hospital. Eventually, however, he agreed. Two samples of his blood were taken at the hospital. The first was collected at 9:29 p.m., approximately four hours after the accident. The second was taken at 10:06 p.m., four and one-half hours after the accident.

{¶ 8} According to the undisputed evidence at trial, the first blood sample showed the presence of cocaine at a level of 171.34 nanograms per milliliter, and benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine, at a level of 464.13 nanograms per milliliter. The second sample showed no cocaine in the bloodstream but that benzoylecgonine was present at a level of 451.61 nanograms per milliliter. The amounts of cocaine and benzoylecgonine found in Hatfield's blood are far in excess of the 50 nanograms per milliliter levels proscribed by the legislature for operating a motor vehicle. See R.C. 4511.19.

{¶ 9} Hatfield was indicted on one count of vehicular homicide, R.C. 2903.06(A)(3)(a), a fourth-degree felony that requires proof of negligence, and one count of aggravated vehicular homicide, R.C. 2903.06(A)(2)(a), a second-degree felony that requires proof of recklessness. The jury returned guilty verdicts on both counts. A divided court of appeals, however, reversed the convictions and remanded the cause for a new trial.

{¶ 10} The appellate court acknowledged that the evidence of the cocaine use, including the results of the blood tests, was relevant to the issue of recklessness. However, the court also held that the state did not connect that evidence to Hatfield's state of mind at the time of the accident and that the average juror does not possess the knowledge to formulate a reliable opinion regarding the lasting effects of cocaine on a user's body. Therefore, the court of appeals held, a reasonable jury could not conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Hatfield had been under the influence of cocaine at the time of the accident, and the court reversed his convictions.

{¶ 11} Admittedly, the state did not present expert or other evidence concerning whether or how the amount of cocaine in Hatfield's blood affected his perceptions or impaired his driving ability. That evidence may have been helpful, but it was not necessary to sustain the convictions.

II

{¶ 12} For more than 50 years, courts have stated that because the effects of alcohol consumption on a person's ability to accurately observe one's environment are a matter of common knowledge and experience, jurors may, without the aid of expert testimony, use the fact of alcohol consumption as a basis on which to infer the impairment of a person's ability to observe and recall accurately. See, e.g., State v. Heinz (1984), 3 Conn.App. 80, 86, 485 A.2d 1321, citing D'Amato v. Johnston (1953), 140 Conn. 54, 58, 97 A.2d 893. I believe that jurors are equally capable of making similar inferences when faced with a defendant's use of drugs such as cocaine, and that the law permits them to do so.

{¶ 13} We are inundated daily with information about drugs and drug abuse. We live in a society in which the effects of recreational drugs such as cocaine are taught to students at an early age as part of formal curricula and in which the effects of such drugs also permeate our local and national news, as well as our common forms of entertainment, including movies¹ and television programs.

{¶ 14} Many courts from around the country recognize that the public is well aware of the effects of using drugs such as cocaine. Although average jurors may not know the specific biological processes used by the body to metabolize a drug like cocaine, they undoubtedly share a common knowledge about such drugs. Courts have found that jurors recognize that drugs such as cocaine are absorbed by the body. See, e.g., State v. Strong (Iowa 1992), 493 N.W.2d 834, 837 (noting that it is "common knowledge" that the human body absorbs and eliminates substances like alcohol and cocaine). Jurors also recognize that cocaine alters a person's perceptions and abilities. See State v. McClendon (1999), 248 Conn. 572, 597, 730 A.2d 1107, fn. 5 ("Even without expert testimony, a jury is likely to view with skepticism an identification made by a witness under the influence of cocaine, because it is common knowledge that use of narcotics impairs perception" [emphasis added]). And jurors know that cocaine is highly addictive and can cause physical harm and death to its users. In re Lock (Tex.2001), 54 S.W.3d 305, 320 ("It is common knowledge that [cocaine] is highly addictive and potentially fatal" [emphasis added]). Cf. Torres v. State (Tex. App.1988), 754 S.W.2d 397, 401 (prosecutor's statements in closing arguments, including "We all know what cocaine does" and "A lot of people are dying," were proper because that "information may easily be classified as common knowledge" [emphasis added]).

{¶ 15} I believe that the following statements by the Supreme Court of Connecticut regarding marijuana are equally applicable to cocaine: "[B]ecause [marijuana] is an illegal substance, it may be that many jurors may have no firsthand knowledge regarding the effects of marijuana on one's ability to perceive and to relate events. At the same time, we cannot blink at the reality that, despite its illegality, because of its widespread use, many people know of the potential effects of marijuana, either through personal experience or through the experience of family members or friends. The ability to draw inferences about the impairing effects of marijuana, like alcohol, however, is based upon common knowledge, experience and common sense, not necessarily on personal experience." State v. Clark (2002), 260 Conn. 813, 824, 801 A.2d 718.

{¶ 16} In this day and age, it is no more remarkable to find that jurors understand the effects of using drugs like marijuana and cocaine than it is to find that they understand the effects of alcohol consumption. Because of that common knowledge, I would hold that in any criminal cases in which a defendant's state of mind is at issue, including this aggravated-vehicular-homicide case, courts should admit reliable evidence of drug use as evidence that the defendant's perceptions may have been impaired while the drug was in his body, even if expert testimony on that fact is not admitted.

{¶ 17} A jury, of course, is not required to find that the use of drugs necessarily affected the defendant's ability to accurately perceive events. Accordingly, the parties may wish to present expert evidence that supports that conclusion.

{¶ 18} But jurors should also be permitted to reach that conclusion based on their own common knowledge, even in the absence of expert testimony. To hold otherwise is, essentially, to hold that the jury must ignore what it already knows simply because an expert did not confirm it. That conclusion is absurd. An expert opinion will not...