State v. Sutton

• Decision Date: 15 November 2001
• Docket Number: No. 99-1245.,99-1245.
• Citation: 636 N.W.2d 107
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Joseph Allen SUTTON, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

636 N.W.2d 107

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Joseph Allen SUTTON, Appellant.

No. 99-1245.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

November 15, 2001.

Kent A. Simmons, Davenport, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Karen Doland, Assistant Attorney General, William E. Davis, County Attorney, and Jerald Feuerbach and Robert Cusack, Assistant County Attorneys, for appellee.

NEUMAN, Justice.

Numerous legal challenges are raised in this appeal by Joseph Sutton from his conviction for aiding and abetting vehicular homicide by reckless driving. But the decisive issue is whether the facts fail to support the conviction as a matter of law. We conclude they do. We therefore vacate a contrary court of appeals decision and reverse the judgment of the district court.

I. Background Facts and Legal Proceedings.

On a sunny Saturday morning in an older residential neighborhood of Davenport, three-year-old Steven Choate played in the front yard of a friend's home. His grandparents were hosting a garage sale across the street. In an evident attempt to rejoin his family, little Steven suddenly ran into the street. Tragically, he was struck and killed by a car driven by fifteen-year-old Joseph "Junior" Butler. Defendant Joseph Sutton, who is seventeen years old, was a passenger in the Butler vehicle.

Wilkes Avenue, where the collision occurred, is a two-lane residential street with parking allowed on both sides and a posted speed limit of twenty-five miles per hour. An eyewitness and two accident reconstruction experts estimated that Butler's pre-impact speed was twenty-seven miles per hour. The eyewitness, Jim Willert, had just passed the Butler vehicle traveling in the opposite direction. Willert drove a van towing a trailer with a stock car on it. As he met the Butler vehicle, Willert pulled over to the curb behind one of two parked cars because there was limited room to pass. Willert's van and trailer were then in a "V" position, between the two parked cars, with the front of the van edging slightly over the middle of the street.

Another passenger in the Butler vehicle, thirteen-year-old Markey Glenn, testified that Butler had to swerve slightly to miss the Willert vehicle, which Glenn described as coming right at them. This explains Willert's belief that the Butler vehicle went somewhat up on the opposite curb and slowed down before resuming speed and passing him. Glenn also testified that upon executing this maneuver, Sutton told Butler "good job" and the two exchanged a "high five." It was reportedly just after this congratulatory gesture that Butler first saw the child in his path. He applied his brakes but failed to stop in time to avoid hitting the child. Willert observed the collision in his rear-view mirror.

Willert assisted Butler in retrieving the child from the undercarriage of the vehicle. Emergency help was summoned. Sutton and Glenn, meanwhile, panicked and fled on foot.

The State charged Sutton with aiding and abetting vehicular homicide by reckless driving in violation of Iowa Code section 707.6A(2)(a) (Supp.1997). The case proceeded to jury trial. During jury selection, Sutton mounted a Batson challenge to the State's peremptory strike of the only African-American on the jury panel. See generally Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). After hearing argument on the point, the court rejected the challenge. The court likewise rejected motions by Sutton for judgment of acquittal based on alleged insufficiency of the evidence to support the charged offense.

The jury returned a verdict finding Sutton guilty as charged. After failing to prevail on a motion for new trial, Sutton appealed. We transferred the case to the court of appeals. That court, with one judge dissenting, affirmed the denial of Sutton's motions for judgment of acquittal but reversed and remanded with directions to the court to apply the correct weight-of-the-evidence standard to Sutton's motion for new trial. See State v. Ellis, 578 N.W.2d 655, 658-59 (Iowa 1998). The dissent believed the district court failed to properly instruct the jury on proximate cause and that counsel's failure to preserve error on this crucial issue warranted preservation of the claim for postconviction relief. The court also rejected Sutton's constitutional challenge to the imposition of $150,000 in victim restitution under Iowa Code section 910.3B(1) (Supp.1997).

The case is now before us on Sutton's petition for further review. Additional facts will be detailed as they pertain to the issues on review.

II. Issue on Appeal/Scope of Review.

As we noted at the outset, Sutton mounts several legal challenges to his conviction, including the court's denial of his Batson challenge and a forceful claim that error by trial counsel led the court to give the jury an inadequate proximate cause instruction. We are convinced, however, that resolution of the appeal turns on the fundamental question of whether, as a matter of law, the State failed to tender sufficient proof of reckless conduct—or aiding and abetting that conduct—to support the charge against Sutton.

We are guided by well-established rules as we consider Sutton's sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge:

The district court's finding of guilt is binding upon us unless we find there was not substantial evidence in the record to support such a finding. In determining whether there was substantial evidence, we view the record evidence in the light most favorable to the State. Substantial evidence means such evidence as could convince a rational trier of fact that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

A reviewing court cannot make a substantial evidence determination if it considers only the evidence supporting guilt. This is so because a rational fact finder cannot render a verdict without taking into consideration all the record evidence. So in determining whether there is substantial evidence, we must consider all the record evidence, not just the evidence supporting guilt.

State v. Torres, 495 N.W.2d 678, 681 (Iowa 1993) (citations omitted).

III. Applicable Law.

Iowa Code section 707.6A(2)(a) sets forth the reckless driving alternative to the crime of homicide by vehicle. The statute provides:

2. A person commits a class "C" felony when the person unintentionally causes the death of another by any of the following means:

a. Driving a motor vehicle in a reckless manner with willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property, in violation of section 321.277.

Iowa Code § 707.6A(2)(a). The language of the reckless driving statute, section 321.277, echoes section 707.6A(2)(a), defining the crime as "driv[ing] any vehicle in such manner as to indicate either a willful or a wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property." Reckless driving is punishable as a simple misdemeanor. Iowa Code § 321.277 (1997).

The burden rests upon the State to prove recklessness. State v. Cox, 500 N.W.2d 23, 26 (Iowa 1993). In Cox, this court made plain that, even when a death occurs, violation of a rule of the road, by itself, does not elevate "a simple misdemeanor to a class `C' felony." Id. Thus proof that a motorist failed to yield at a stop sign, without accompanying evidence of speeding or erratic driving, was insufficient as a matter of law to establish the recklessness necessary to support a conviction for vehicular homicide. Id. Relying on Cox, the court held in State v. Klatt, 544 N.W.2d 461, 463 (Iowa Ct.App.1995), that proof of improper passing, without more, could not sustain a vehicular homicide conviction. Klatt involved a motorist who was attempting to pass two semi-trailer trucks when he collided with an oncoming vehicle, killing the driver. Although the maneuver occurred in a no-passing zone, the court held that absent proof of excessive speed or other conscious disregard for the safety of others, the State failed in its burden of proving recklessness. Klatt, 544 N.W.2d at 463.

These cases, and others addressing conduct resulting in the unintentional death of another, recognize that attaching criminal culpability to an act requires more than proof of accidental or negligent behavior. "[F]or recklessness to exist," this court held in State v. Torres,

the act must be fraught with a high degree of danger. In addition the danger must be so obvious from the facts that the actor knows or should reasonably foresee that harm will probably—that is, more likely than not—flow from the act.

495 N.W.2d at 681. In other words, a person acts recklessly when the person's actions are not merely unreasonable but "highly" unreasonable; not merely a departure from ordinary care but an "extreme" departure. See id. (quoting William L. Prosser, Handbook of the Law of Torts § 34, at 185 (4th ed.1971)).

Several cases involving prosecutions for vehicular homicide demonstrate behavior deemed highly unreasonable and, therefore, reckless. In State v. Conyers, 506 N.W.2d 442, 443 (Iowa 1993), the facts revealed that defendant drove ten miles an hour over the posted speed limit in a school zone, traveling through a red light and into a marked crosswalk where he struck and killed a nine-year-old on her way home from school. The facts further revealed that three out of the four brakes on Conyers' truck were "completely deteriorated and inoperable." Conyers, 506 N.W.2d at 443. Conyers knew of the brakes' defective condition and, in fact, had been warned that very day not to drive the vehicle. Id. at 444. This court held that the defendant's disregard for this danger, combined with driving at an excessive speed in a school zone, demonstrated the level of recklessness necessary to support a conviction for vehicular homicide. Id. at 445.

In a more recent case, this court distinguished Klatt and Cox, upholding a conviction for vehicular homicide where, in a deadly move, the defendant—driving nearly ninety miles per hour in a no-passing zone—forced an oncoming motorist off the...