Winningham v. State
| Decision Date | 10 April 2023 |
| Docket Number | 143,2022 |
| Parties | BRIAN WINNINGHAM, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE OF DELAWARE, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Delaware |
Submitted: February 8, 2023
Court Below: Superior Court of the State of Delaware Cr. ID No 2009001203(N)
Upon appeal from the Superior Court. AFFIRMED.
Elliot Margules, Esquire, OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER, Wilmington Delaware, for Defendant Below, Appellant Brian Winningham.
Sean P. Lugg, Esquire, DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Wilmington Delaware, for Appellee State of Delaware.
Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VALIHURA and TRAYNOR, Justices.
Brian Winningham was driving a fully loaded tractor-trailer on Interstate 95 in Delaware when he diverted his attention from the road ahead and failed to notice stopped traffic backed up in the travel lane waiting to exit the highway. Winningham crashed his tractor-trailer at highway speed into three stopped cars and killed two people while injuring two others. After a bench trial, the judge found Winningham guilty of two counts of criminally negligent homicide and other offenses.
A criminally negligent homicide conviction requires that the defendant fail to perceive a risk that death would result from his conduct. The risk of death must be such that the failure to perceive it was a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the same situation. On appeal, Winningham argues that his criminally negligent homicide convictions should be overturned because his only driving infraction was a momentary inattention from the roadway. Winningham also argues that the trial court erred because it found only that he failed to perceive a risk of "serious physical injury" instead of a failure to perceive a risk of "death."
We affirm the Superior Court's convictions. Viewed in a light most favorable to the State, the evidence shows that Winningham diverted his attention from the roadway for at least four seconds while driving a fully loaded tractor-trailer at highway speed in the far-right lane of an interstate highway. A rational trier of fact could find that, under the circumstances, Winningham's inattention was prolonged enough that it was a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe. Further, the trial court's verdict shows that the court did not misunderstand or misapply the law. Even if it did, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
We view the evidence in the light most favorable to the State.[1] Winningham was driving a fully loaded tractor-trailer on Interstate 95 in Delaware on a sunny and dry day.[2] He was not driving under the influence. His cell phone records did not show that he was using the phone at the time of the crash. He also recently completed a long off-duty period during which time he could have rested.
The tractor-trailer's dash camera showed that Winningham was traveling in a hurried manner. He was delivering freight to Charlotte, North Carolina, about eight hours away from his departure point in New Jersey. He also had only eight hours left on a 70-hour, eight-day workweek, after which he would be required to stop driving for about a day and a half. The tractor-trailer dashcam video showed that he passed at least seven other tractor-trailers during the twenty minutes after he started driving and before the crash. No other tractor-trailer passed Winningham.
The highway speed limit was 65 miles per hour. The tractor-trailer had a governor that limited its maximum speed to 70 miles per hour. Winningham was driving with the cruise control engaged at the maximum speed. For at least the last minute before the crash, he was traveling 68 to 70 miles per hour. His speed was 67 miles per hour at the time of the collision.
As Winningham approached an exit in the far-right lane, a line of stopped traffic appeared in front of him. Winningham did not brake. Even though the lane to his left and the improved shoulder to his right were empty, he did not attempt to avoid the line of cars before the crash. The stopped traffic was visible in the dashcam video at least four seconds before the collision.
The trial court found that, based on Winningham's post-crash statement, he was looking away from the road for at least four or five seconds before the collision.[3]In the same statement, Winningham recalled that he diverted his eyes from the roadway to reach for a drink and noticed a gray car entered his lane in front him; as he looked up, he saw the traffic had stopped and slammed on the brakes.
From the dashcam video, however, the car entered in front of Winningham around twenty seconds before the collision and then left the lane at least five seconds before the collision. Winningham did not recall seeing the car leaving the lane and thought he hit the car, which he did not. The trial court found demonstrable inaccuracies in Winningham's statement and accorded little weight to his explanation.
The collision caused two deaths, left one person paralyzed, and injured another. After a bench trial, the trial judge convicted Winningham of two counts of criminally negligent homicide, one count of vehicular assault in the second degree, one count of vehicular assault in the third degree, and one count of inattentive driving. The trial court concluded that Winningham acted with criminal negligence based on three factors. First, Winningham was traveling at high speed in a tractortrailer in the far-right lane near rush hour, was approaching an exit, and the roadway had moderate traffic. Second, Winningham had a prolonged period of inattention from the roadway for at least four seconds. And third, in addition to being inattentive to the road in front of him, he was not paying attention to any of his surroundings, as shown by his failure to attempt to slow down or otherwise avoid the stopped vehicles before the collision.
To convict an individual of criminally negligent homicide, the trier of fact must find that the defendant caused the death of another person through criminal negligence.[4] In the homicide context, criminal negligence requires that the defendant fail to perceive a risk of death, and that the risk "must be of such a nature and degree that failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation."[5]
This Court recently addressed criminal negligence in Cannon v. State.[6] In Cannon, we reversed a criminally negligent homicide delinquency finding. The Court concluded that the defendant's physical attack of the victim - an altercation in a high school bathroom not involving a weapon - did not amount to criminal negligence because it did not pose a risk of death so apparent that it was grossly deviant of the defendant to fail to recognize it.[7] The Court explained that "the mere fact that someone's behavior posed some risk of death is too slender a reed for criminal culpability."[8] Instead, the defendant's "failure to recognize that her behavior had deadly consequences must [] have been so 'abnormal' that her indifference to the risk of death is markedly disparate from how a reasonable person in her position would have grasped the situation."[9]
The parties in this appeal agree that "inattention [while driving] could constitute criminal negligence."[10] What they disagree about is whether the circumstances of this case support such a finding. The Delaware courts have addressed when inattentive driving is criminally negligent. In Hazzard v. State, the defendant approached an intersection of a four-lane highway on a clear day.[11] After stopping at the stop sign, the defendant failed to see the victim's car, entered the intersection, and the two cars collided. The trial court found the defendant guilty of vehicular homicide in the second degree which required a criminal negligence finding.
On appeal, the defendant asserted that the trial judge's verdict supported only a simple negligence finding. This Court rejected the argument. We found that "[t]he failure to see an oncoming automobile, at an unobstructed intersection controlled by both a stop sign and flashing red light, in broad day light constitutes criminal negligence."[12] Similarly, in State v. Donato, the Superior Court rejected the defendant's argument that his inattentive driving was not criminal negligence.[13] There, the defendant was driving on a highway on a clear day with moderate traffic conditions. The defendant entered a construction zone at the Christiana River Bridge and failed to see that traffic had stopped until it was too late. He applied his brakes but collided with the vehicle in front of him. While driving, he was talking to his wife and pointing out some conditions off the bridge. The normal speed limit for the highway was 55 miles per hour, but it was reduced to 35 miles just before the bridge. The defendant admitted he was traveling at least 55 miles per hour at the time he applied his brakes.
The evidence at trial showed, however, that none of the witnesses, including the police officer who arrived after the incident, recalled seeing the signs reducing the speed limit to 35 miles per hour.[14] All the witnesses except one were exceeding the speed limit as they passed the construction zone.[15] The jury found Donato guilty of vehicular homicide, which, as noted earlier, requires criminal negligence. The defendant moved for judgment of acquittal and argued that the crash was the result of "a moment's inattention" and "his conduct was not a gross deviation from the 13 1990 WL 140073, at *2 standard of care" given that most of the witnesses also failed to see the speed limit signs.[16] In a post-trial decision, the Superior Court...
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