State v. Leroy

• Decision Date: 31 January 1995
• Docket Number: No. 14879,14879
• Citation: 653 A.2d 161,232 Conn. 1
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut, v. James D. LEROY.

Page 161

653 A.2d 161

232 Conn. 1

STATE of Connecticut, v. James D. LEROY.

No. 14879.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Oct. 27, 1994.

Decided Jan. 31, 1995.

Jack W. Fischer, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were James E. Thomas, State's Atty., and Keith Duboff, Asst. State's Atty., for appellant (State).

Temmy Ann Pieszak, Asst. Public Defender, for appellee (defendant).

Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, BORDEN, BERDON and KATZ, JJ.

CALLAHAN, Associate Justice.

The defendant, James Leroy, was convicted after a jury trial of assault in the second degree with a motor vehicle while intoxicated in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1985) § 53a-60d(a). ¹ He appealed from the judgment of conviction to the Appellate Court, which reversed the judgment and ordered a new trial. The principal issue in this certified appeal ² is whether the Appellate Court properly determined that the trial court violated the defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial when it instructed the jury that the defendant's conduct was the proximate cause of the victim's injuries if his conduct was "a substantial factor" in bringing about those injuries. We reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The pertinent facts as set forth in the opinion of the Appellate Court are as follows. "On September 29, 1984, at approximately 3 a.m., the defendant, James Leroy, was involved in a two vehicle collision with Leslie Daniel in Enfield. The defendant's car was traveling east and Daniel's car was heading west on Shaker Road when the two cars collided. The area where the impact occurred was rural, dark and badly lit, with curves and hills. Ralph Adamczyk was the only eyewitness to the accident. He was traveling behind Daniel's car and observed both headlights of the defendant's oncoming car as it came around a corner. As the defendant's car approached, the driver's side headlight disappeared twice from Adamczyk's view. Both cars swerved to avoid a collision. Adamczyk spoke with and observed the defendant after the collision and did not consider him to be intoxicated. At the accident scene, police officers noted the smell of alcohol on the defendant, and the defendant had difficulty maintaining his balance and exhibited slurred speech. The defendant was unable to perform two field sobriety tests satisfactorily. The defendant's breath test yielded a blood alcohol reading of 0.215 of 1 percent, revealing that he had consumed between ten to thirteen beers.

"As a result of the accident, Daniel suffered serious injuries. She was unconscious from the time of the accident until October 19, 1984, and remained hospitalized until late November, 1984. Upon release from the hospital, Daniel's speech and memory were impaired, she could not walk or use her left arm, and her vision was limited. She received more than seven months of physical, occupational and educational rehabilitation therapy. Daniel's speech is no longer impaired and she has relearned to read and write, but has not regained all of her memory. Daniel cannot walk or use her left arm or hand, and has impaired vision." State v. Leroy, 33 Conn.App. 232, 234-35, 635 A.2d 305 (1993).

The defendant subsequently was charged with assault in the second degree with a motor vehicle while intoxicated. At trial, the defendant offered evidence to prove that the accident had occurred on his side of the highway, and thus that it was Daniel, not he, who had crossed the center line and had caused the collision. At the conclusion of the evidence, the court instructed the jury, without objection from the defendant, ³ that if the defendant's conduct was "a substantial factor" in bringing about the victim's injuries, his conduct was the proximate cause of those injuries. ⁴ The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the trial court sentenced the defendant to five years incarceration, execution suspended after two years, and five years of probation.

The defendant appealed from the judgment of conviction to the Appellate Court. ⁵ The Appellate Court determined that the trial court's instruction to the jury with regard to proximate cause ⁶ was improper because it required the defendant's conduct to have been only "a substantial factor" in bringing about the victim's injuries rather than "the substantial factor" or "the predominating cause." (Emphasis added.) The Appellate Court concluded that the trial court's instruction did not comply with the language used by this court in State v. Spates, 176 Conn. 227, 405 A.2d 656 (1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 922, 99 S.Ct. 1248, 59 L.Ed.2d 475 (1979), and consequently violated the defendant's due process right to a fair trial. State v. Leroy, supra, 33 Conn.App. at 238-40, 635 A.2d 305.

In Spates, we said that proximate cause "in the criminal law does not necessarily mean the last act of cause, or the act in point of time nearest to death. The concept of proximate cause incorporates the notion that an accused may be charged with a criminal offense even though his acts were not the immediate cause of death. An act or omission to act is the proximate cause of death when it substantially and materially contributes, in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient, intervening cause, to the resulting death. It is the cause without which the death would not have occurred and the predominating cause, the substantial factor, from which death follows as a natural direct and immediate consequence." (Emphasis added.) State v. Spates, supra, 176 Conn. at 233-34, 405 A.2d 656. The Appellate Court stated that although "[i]t is not crucial for jury instructions to include the exact language offered in Spates," an instruction must not allow "a guilty verdict simply if the defendant's conduct was one of the many factors that caused the injuries." State v. Leroy, supra, 33 Conn.App. at 239, 635 A.2d 305. The court concluded that "Spates requires that an accused's conduct be the predominating cause or the substantial factor of the resulting injuries and that this element be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.... As we stated, it is possible that an accused's conduct may be a substantial factor in resulting injuries, but not the predominating cause or the substantial factor. A jury, faced with these instructions, could reasonably convict without finding that the actions were the predominating cause or the substantial factor. Because the trial court's instructions to the jury did not provide a substantively accurate statement of the law on the essential element of causation, an issue strongly contested at trial, it is reasonably possible that the jury was misled in rendering the verdict." (Emphasis in original.) Id. at 240, 635 A.2d 305. Accordingly, the Appellate Court reversed the judgment of the trial court, and remanded the case for a new trial. This appeal followed.

I

The state claims that the Appellate Court misapplied Spates and improperly determined that the trial court's jury instruction on proximate cause violated the defendant's constitutional rights. The state also argues that even if the trial court's instruction was incorrect, its error was harmless under the facts of this case. We agree that the Appellate Court misapplied Spates, and reverse the judgment without engaging in a harmless error analysis.

We begin by noting that an improper jury instruction as to an essential element of the crime charged may result in the violation of the defendant's due process right to a fair trial, and thus require the reversal of a conviction based upon that instruction. State v. Allen, 216 Conn. 367, 383, 579 A.2d 1066 (1990); State v. Foster, 202 Conn. 520, 537, 522 A.2d 277 (1987); State v. Fleming, 198 Conn. 255, 269-70, 502 A.2d 886, cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1143, 106 S.Ct. 1797, 90 L.Ed.2d 342 (1986). When reviewing the challenged jury instruction, however, we must "adhere to the well settled rule that a charge to the jury is to be considered in its entirety, read as a whole, and judged by its total effect rather than by its individual component parts.... [T]he test of a court's charge is not whether it is as accurate upon legal principles as the opinions of a court of last resort but whether it fairly presents the case to the jury in such a way that injustice is not done to either party under the established rules of law.... As long as [the instructions] are correct in law, adapted to the issues and sufficient for the guidance of the jury ... we will not view the instructions as improper." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Blanchette v. Barrett, 229 Conn. 256, 280-81, 640 A.2d 74 (1994).

In order to determine whether the trial court's jury instruction was incorrect, it is useful to analyze our cases that have discussed proximate causation in criminal prosecutions. In State v. Spates, supra, 176 Conn. at 229, 405 A.2d 656, the defendant had informed the victim and his wife that he intended to rob them. After the defendant had bound the victim and his spouse in the basement, the victim, who had previously had four heart attacks, suffered a heart attack and died. After the defendant was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree by a jury, he challenged on appeal the trial court's jury instruction as to causation. Although we did indicate that an act is the proximate cause of a victim's injuries when it is "the substantial factor" or "the predominating cause" of the injuries, those words must be viewed within the framework of the entire Spates opinion.

First, we note that in Spates, the defendant's challenge to the jury instruction had nothing to do with whether "the substantial factor" or "a substantial factor" language should have been used. Rather, the defendant argued that the instruction given did not explain to the jury his view that there must be an actual infliction of external physical injury upon the victim by the defendant before a causal connection between the defendant's conduct and the victim's...