State v. Tiffany

• Decision Date: 25 March 2004
• Docket Number: No. 30001.,30001.
• Citation: 139 Idaho 909,88 P.3d 728
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Michelle L. TIFFANY, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

88 P.3d 728

139 Idaho 909

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Michelle L. TIFFANY, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 30001.

Supreme Court of Idaho, Boise, February 2004 Term.

March 25, 2004.

Rehearing Denied April 12, 2004.

John M. Adams, Kootenai County Public Defender, Coeur d'Alene, for appellant. John M. Adams argued.

Hon. Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. Kenneth K. Jorgensen, Deputy Attorney General, argued.

EISMANN, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction, following a jury trial, for the crime of involuntary manslaughter where the defendant-appellant smothered her infant son in an attempt to stop his crying. We affirm the judgment.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On August 5, 1999, appellant Michelle Tiffany's two-month-old son, Nathan, died. She initially reported that she had put Nathan down for a nap and taken a bath, and when she came back into the bedroom he was not breathing. An autopsy performed the next day did not reveal any cause of death, and so the pathologist listed the cause as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

At the end of June 2000, Tiffany told her husband that she had smothered Nathan by twice putting her hand over his nose and mouth to stop his crying. They decided to seek marital counseling concerning the matter. During their first counseling session on September 26, 2000, Tiffany disclosed to the counselor that she had killed Nathan by smothering him. The counselor then called Child Protective Services, who contacted the police. Two officers responded to the counselor's office and talked with Tiffany. She stated that Nathan had been crying all morning, and she finally put her hand over his nose and mouth to make him stop. He then passed out, but when he awakened about a minute later, he began crying louder. She again placed her hand over his nose and mouth, and held it there until she noticed he was starting to turn blue. When she removed her hand, he was no longer breathing. She then telephoned her husband, who told her to call 911, which she did. After having her repeat her account of Nathan's death, the officers arrested her. The next day, a detective with the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department interviewed Tiffany while she was in custody. Her statement regarding the circumstances surrounding Nathan's death was consistent with what she had told the police officers the day before. She was subsequently charged with involuntary manslaughter.

The trial commenced on March 13, 2001. The amended information alleged that Tiffany had committed involuntary manslaughter in the perpetration of an unlawful act, which was twice covering Nathan's nose and mouth to the point of unconsciousness. When instructing the jury regarding the unlawful act element of the offense, the district court instructed the jury regarding the crimes of injury to a child and battery. On March 15, 2001, the jury returned its verdict finding Tiffany guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Tiffany timely appealed, and the Idaho Court of Appeals initially heard her appeal. It vacated Tiffany's conviction on the ground that the trial court had erred when instructing the jury regarding the meaning of the word "wilfully," which was used in the jury instructions defining both injury to a child and battery. We then granted the State's petition for review.

II. ISSUES ON APPEAL

A. Did the district court err in denying Tiffany's motion for a judgment of acquittal?

B. Did the district court err in refusing to give Tiffany's requested instruction regarding mental illness?

C. Did the district court err in refusing to give Tiffany's requested jury instructions on corpus delicti and corroboration of her extrajudicial statements?

D. Did the district err in instructing the jury regarding the crime of injury to a child?

E. Did the district court err in refusing to give Tiffany's jury instruction on proximate cause?

III. ANALYSIS

In cases that come before this Court on a petition for review of a court of appeals decision, this Court gives serious consideration to the views of the court of appeals, but directly reviews the decision of the lower court. Head v. State, 137 Idaho 1, 43 P.3d 760 (2002).

A. Did the District Court Err in Denying Tiffany's Motion for a Judgment of Acquittal?

At the conclusion of the State's case in chief, Tiffany moved for a judgment of acquittal on the ground that the State had failed to prove the corpus delicti independent of her confessions. She based her argument upon the testimony of the Pathologist, who stated that death caused by drowning, smothering, or SIDS does not leave any evidence of causation discoverable by autopsy. If the victim forcibly resists, or excessive force is applied, there may be evidence of certain types of traumatic injury that may occur in connection with the smothering. He found no evidence of trauma during Nathan's autopsy, but, because the very young typically do not resist smothering, the lack of trauma did not disprove that Nathan was smothered. Because the autopsy did not disclose any traumatic injury, disease, or congenital abnormality that could have caused Nathan's death, and he was under six months of age, the Pathologist diagnosed his cause of death as SIDS. It is the diagnosis given when there is an otherwise unexplained death of an infant. His autopsy, however, neither proved nor disproved Tiffany's statement that she smothered Nathan. According to the Pathologist, if Tiffany's statement is credible, then he would say that Nathan died because of smothering. If her statement is not credible, then he would say that Nathan died of SIDS. Tiffany argues that she cannot be convicted of manslaughter unless there is other evidence, independent of her out-of-court statements, showing that Nathan's death was caused by criminal action. Absent such evidence, she contends that she is entitled to a directed verdict of acquittal.

In State v. Keller, 8 Idaho 699, 70 P. 1051 (1902), this Court first addressed the issue of whether a criminal conviction could be based solely upon the extrajudicial confessions or statements of the defendant. In Keller the defendant was convicted of violating the quarantine laws by bringing into Idaho within forty days of the governor's quarantine proclamation issued on March 19, 1901, sheep that had been held, herded, ranged within, or driven through Box Elder County, Utah. The State's evidence consisted of the governor's proclamation and the testimony of a witness who stated that on April 12, 1901, he went to the defendant's sheep camp in Oneida County, Idaho, that the defendant had a band of about 2,000 sheep there, and that the defendant had stated that he had wintered the sheep on the desert and then two or three days ago had brought them through Box Elder County, Utah, into Idaho. At the close of the State's case, the defendant asked the court to instruct the jury to return a verdict in his behalf because of the insufficiency of the evidence, which motion the court denied. He then appealed, contending that his motion should have been granted because the State failed in its case in chief to prove the corpus delicti.

This Court recognized the general rule that "the fact that a crime has been committed cannot be proved by the extrajudicial confessions or statements of the prisoner, and that there must be some evidence or corroborating circumstances tending to show that a crime has been committed, aside from such confessions or statements." 8 Idaho at 704, 70 P. at 1052. With respect to the corroborating evidence, this Court recognized, "Full proof of the body of the crime,— the corpus delicti,—independently of the confessions, is not required by any of the cases; and in many of them slight corroborating facts were held sufficient." 8 Idaho at 705, 70 P. at 1052 (citation omitted). This Court then held that in this case there was sufficient corroborating evidence and so the court did not err in denying defendant's motion.

The only corroborating evidence offered in the State's case in chief was the witness' testimony that on April 12, 1901, he saw the defendant tending the band of sheep in Oneida County, Idaho. The State offered no corroborating evidence that the defendant had held, herded, ranged within, or driven his sheep through Box Elder County, Utah, or that he had brought them into Idaho after, rather than before, the governor's proclamation.

We next considered the issue in State v. Downing, 23 Idaho 540, 130 P. 461 (1913), in which the defendant was convicted of attempting to rape a thirteen-year-old girl. The State had offered into evidence extrajudicial statements of the defendant, and he contended on appeal that there was insufficient other evidence to establish the corpus delicti of the crime. This Court noted that the applicable rule of law was, "Full proof of the body of the crime, the corpus delicti, independently of the confession, is not required by any of the cases; and in many of them slight corroborating facts are held sufficient." 23 Idaho at 544, 130 P. at 462. The girl had not testified, and the State's case rested largely upon the testimony of a witness named Fix. She testified that the defendant came into Fix's room in his stocking feet, that a few minutes later the girl came into the room with her hair down and her clothes unfastened, that she threw her arms around Fix's neck and told her that the defendant had tried to have sexual intercourse with her, and that the defendant responded, "I didn't hurt you, did I?" In holding that there was sufficient corroborating evidence independent of the defendant's statement, this Court said, "Some of the circumstances corroborating the alleged confession of the defendant in this case are his appearance in the room of witness Fix in his stocking feet, and, shortly after, the girl's coming in crying and in a disheveled condition. We think the corroboration was sufficient." 23 Idaho at 544-45, 130 P. at 462.

The next case...