COMMONWEALTH vs. SUZANNE HARDY.
SJC-12637
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
June 12, 2019
Hampden. February 5, 2019. Present: Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.
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Homicide. Motor Vehicle, Homicide, Operating to endanger. Reckless Endangerment of a Child. Wanton or Reckless Conduct.
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on June 1, 2015.
The cases were tried before Richard J. Carey, J.
The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative transferred the case from the Appeals Court.
Marissa Elkins for the defendant.
Shane T. O‘Sullivan, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
CYPHER, J. In June 2014, the defendant, Suzanne Hardy, was involved in a multivehicle accident in Brimfield in which her two nephews -- four year old Dylan Riel and sixteen month old Jayce Garcia -- were fatally injured.1 The defendant and her four year old son were seriously injured, but survived. At the time of the accident, Dylan was seated in the rear middle seat of the defendant‘s four-door sedan with the seat belt fastened, but without an
The defendant was indicted on two counts of manslaughter,
On appeal, the defendant raises two arguments. First, she contends that there was insufficient evidence to support the convictions of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child relating to Dylan. Second, she argues that, during closing argument, the Commonwealth improperly argued inferences not supported by the evidence and appealed to the passions and sympathies of the jury. We conclude that there was insufficient evidence to show that the defendant‘s actions amounted to wanton or reckless conduct, and as such, we vacate the convictions of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment of Dylan. The defendant‘s two convictions of negligent homicide are affirmed.2
1. Background.
The defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence; therefore, we summarize the facts in the light most
The defendant drove the children to her home, where she lived with her parents, so that they could play. Meanwhile, the defendant and her parents decided to leave for vacation with Dylan that day. The defendant had planned to take her two children and Dylan to meet her parents at their destination the following day, but decided to leave that day instead, as Dylan‘s baseball practice was canceled.
After her plans changed, the defendant decided to drive to Riel‘s house to return Jayce to his mother and pick up an overnight bag for Dylan to take on vacation. As the defendant placed her two nephews and her son in her vehicle, her father observed that there were only two safety seats in her vehicle‘s back seat. He took a booster seat out of his wife‘s vehicle and placed it against the rear driver‘s side door of the defendant‘s vehicle. The defendant picked up the booster seat, opened her vehicle‘s rear door, looked into the back seat, closed the door, and placed the booster seat in the trunk of her vehicle.
When the defendant left, her son was in the rear driver‘s side of the vehicle in his booster seat, Jayce was in the front-facing safety seat behind the front passenger‘s seat with the straps set at an improper height, and Dylan was buckled into the rear middle seat with a shoulder and lap belt but no booster seat. The defendant‘s
At around 4:30 P.M., the defendant was driving approximately the speed limit, fifty-five miles per hour, on a four-lane highway in Brimfield. This stretch of the highway was relatively flat; had four lanes, two eastbound and two westbound; and was divided in the middle by a double yellow line. A dump truck with an attached trailer was stopped in the left-hand eastbound lane ahead, as the driver waited to make a left turn into a parking lot. The truck was stopped for approximately thirty seconds to one minute, while the driver waited for westbound traffic to clear in order to make the turn. The truck‘s trailer attachment‘s turn signal was on. The defendant‘s vehicle approached the truck from behind without slowing down, then quickly swerved into the right eastbound lane and struck the guardrail on the right side of the road. It crossed both eastbound lanes in front of the truck and then crossed the double yellow line into oncoming westbound traffic. The defendant‘s vehicle struck the back of a sport utility vehicle in the left westbound lane before hitting a sedan traveling in the right westbound lane head-on. The two vehicles were traveling between fifty and fifty-nine miles per hour at the time of impact. Two State police accident reconstruction experts testified that the defendant did not apply her brakes at any time leading up to the collision. Dylan and Jayce did not survive the crash.6,7
At trial, the Commonwealth‘s medical examiner determined the cause of death was the same for each child -- blunt force trauma of the head and neck with atlanto-occipital disarticulation. This type of injury occurs when “the head and the body are not in synchronization,” such as when the body is restrained or stationary
One of the accident reconstruction experts testified that all three child safety seats were capable of being properly installed in the back seat. According to State law and manufacturer recommendations, based on their ages and weights, Dylan should have been in a booster seat and Jayce, although in a proper safety seat, should have been rear-facing. The accident reconstruction expert testified to the safety benefits of a booster seat and how it can position a child so that the seat belt aligns with the strong points of the body. If properly used, a booster seat allows the body to “slow down and ride down . . . collision forces and make [a crash] survivable.” In addition, the expert testified that weather, solar glare, and mechanical defects were not factors in this collision. In the expert‘s opinion, a “normal person” in the defendant‘s position would have been able to avoid the collision by perceiving the trailer ahead of her, and the crash was the result of the defendant‘s inattentiveness to the road in front of her.
2. Sufficiency of the evidence.
The defendant moved for required findings of not guilty on all counts at the close of the Commonwealth‘s case and again at the close of all evidence. The motion was allowed as to one count of reckless endangerment of a child, as to the defendant‘s son, at the close of the Commonwealth‘s evidence, but the motions were otherwise denied. On appeal, the defendant contends that the judge erred when he denied the motions and ruled, both during trial and again after the jury‘s verdicts, that securing Dylan with a regular seat belt, but not placing him in a booster seat, was a legally sufficient basis to convict her of manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child. The Commonwealth contends that the defendant‘s conduct created a substantial risk of bodily injury sufficient to satisfy the elements of recklessness for both involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child.
The elements of the crime of manslaughter are derived from the common law. Commonwealth v. Carter, 481 Mass. 352, 364 (2019). In Carter, we reiterated the long-standing definition of manslaughter as “an unlawful homicide, unintentionally caused by an act which constitutes such a disregard of probable harmful consequences
As a general rule, the requirement of “wanton or reckless conduct” may be satisfied by either the commission of an intentional act or an intentional omission where there is a duty to act. Commonwealth v. Pugh, 462 Mass. 482, 497 (2012). “To constitute wanton or reckless conduct, as distinguished from mere negligence, grave danger to others must have been apparent, and the defendant must have chosen to run the risk rather than alter [her] conduct so as to avoid the act or omission which caused the harm.” Welansky, 316 Mass. at 398. See Commonwealth v. Dragotta, 476 Mass. 680, 686 (2017), quoting Commonwealth v. Levesque, 436 Mass. 443, 452 (2002). Although our cases state frequently that “[t]he essence of wanton or reckless conduct is intentional conduct,” see Commonwealth v. Catalina, 407 Mass. 779, 789 (1990), quoting Welansky, supra at 399, wanton or reckless conduct does not require that the actor intended the specific result of her conduct, but only that he or she intended to do the wanton or reckless act. Commonwealth v. Life Care Ctrs. of Am., Inc., 456 Mass. 826, 832 (2010).
Reckless endangerment of a child, on the other hand, is a crime created by the Legislature. See
This court, as well as the Appeals Court, has had many occasions to define what type of conduct is “wanton or reckless” concerning the care of children. See Commonwealth v. Hendricks, 452 Mass. 97, 104-106 (2008) (wanton or reckless conduct under § 13L where defendant [1] went on high-speed nighttime chase with police while his three year old child was in vehicle, and [2] fled on foot with child with police in pursuit because defendant knew such pursuit would place child at substantial risk of harm); Commonwealth v. Twitchell, 416 Mass. 114, 118 (1993) (failure to provide medical care to young child in distress is reckless conduct in support of involuntary manslaughter conviction); Commonwealth v. Leonard, 90 Mass. App. Ct. 187, 194 (2016) (wanton or reckless conduct under § 13L where defendants were consuming alcohol along with teenagers in defendants’ home, were aware that minor victim was vomiting after consuming large volume of alcohol, and did not heed victim‘s requests to be taken to hospital); Commonwealth v. Figueroa, 83 Mass. App. Ct. 251, 259-261 (2013) (wanton or reckless conduct under § 13L where, after defendant‘s boyfriend dropped her infant grandson, defendant [1] refused plea of infant‘s mother to take infant to hospital, and [2] took mother‘s telephone to prevent her from calling 911); Commonwealth v. Power, 76 Mass. App. Ct. 398, 407 (2010) (violation of statutory and regulatory standards was wanton or reckless conduct in support of involuntary manslaughter conviction where toddler died in defendant‘s day care facility); Commonwealth v. Robinson, 74 Mass. App. Ct. 752, 758-759 (2009) (wanton or reckless conduct in support of conviction
Likewise, we have considered the type of conduct that is “wanton or reckless” when operating a motor vehicle. See Hendricks, 452 Mass. at 104-106; Commonwealth v. DeSimone, 349 Mass. 770, 770-771 (1965) (defendant passing vehicle, weaving through traffic, following too closely, and again passing vehicle sufficient to constitute wanton or reckless conduct for manslaughter conviction); Commonwealth v. Moore, 92 Mass. App. Ct. 40, 45-46 (2017) (wanton or reckless operation of vehicle where defendant led police on high-speed chase through busy city streets at rush hour and made no effort to slow down or steer away from intersection before collision that struck victim); Commonwealth v. Guaman, 90 Mass. App. Ct. 36, 41 (2016) (wanton or reckless operation of motor vehicle supported manslaughter conviction where defendant chose to drive after being visibly drunk and continued to drive after striking victim, hearing victim scream, and hearing witnesses yelling at defendant to stop). In these cases, “a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result to another” flowed from the intentional conduct. Earle, 458 Mass. at 347, quoting Welansky, 316 Mass. at 399.
Perhaps it is a testament to prosecutorial discretion, trial judges properly dismissing cases based on insufficient evidence, and juries conscientiously performing their function that we have had few occasions to review convictions on the basis that the evidence was insufficient to prove “wanton or reckless” conduct. See, e.g., Dragotta, 476 Mass. at 686-689 (not wanton or reckless conduct where defendant‘s infant suffered significant injuries from defendant‘s boyfriend because there was no evidence that defendant should have known boyfriend was so manifestly unfit to care for victim that grave danger existed when infant was left in boyfriend‘s care); Pugh, 462 Mass. at 484 (no wanton or reckless conduct where defendant in labor decided to give birth unassisted); Life Care Ctrs. of Am., Inc., 456 Mass. at 833-834 (insufficient evidence to support involuntary manslaughter conviction where nursing home resident died as result of negligence, but no individual behavior could be found to have been wanton or reckless); Commonwealth v. Santos, 94 Mass. App. Ct. 558, 561 (2018) (defendant‘s act of leaving child in front of television while defendant used bathroom was not reckless even though child previously
Moreover, in all cases, not just those in which there is a horrific tragedy as there is here, we must look at the conduct that caused the result to determine whether it was wanton or reckless, not the resultant harm. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Flynn, 420 Mass. 810, 815 (1995) (evidence was insufficient to support guilty verdict because Commonwealth failed to prove that defendant‘s conduct was cause of victim‘s death); Commonwealth v. Michaud, 389 Mass. 491, 498-499 (1983) (where infant died of starvation, total evidence, including physical appearance of child at time of death and conjectural evidence that mother did not appropriately feed child, was insufficient to establish wanton or reckless culpability).
Here, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, no rational juror could find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant‘s actions were wanton or reckless. The evidence showed that Dylan and Jayce died as a result of the collision. The jury were permitted to infer from the evidence that the defendant‘s negligent driving contributed to the collision. Experts with the State police testified that the defendant was driving approximately the speed limit, but did not apply her brakes at any time leading up to collision. Neither weather, solar glare, nor mechanical defects were factors in the collision. One of the experts concluded that a “normal person” in the defendant‘s position would have been able to avoid the collision by perceiving the trailer ahead of her and that the crash was the result of the defendant‘s inattentiveness to the road in front of her. The defendant‘s general inattentiveness alone, however, is insufficient to support a finding of recklessness. Cf. Hendricks, 452 Mass. at 104-106; Moore, 92 Mass. App. Ct. at 45-46; Guaman, 90 Mass. App. Ct. at 41.
The evidence also showed that the defendant acknowledged the booster seat provided by her father, but that she placed it in the trunk of her vehicle rather than secure it in the backseat with the two safety seats already installed, even though three child safety seats were capable of being properly installed at the same time. The Commonwealth relies on this evidence to support the inference that the defendant recognized, and thereafter disregarded, the risk of harm from securing Dylan without a booster seat. Although this evidence suggests that the defendant appreciated
In addition, the evidence showed that a child of Dylan‘s size legally was required to be secured in a booster seat. See
The Commonwealth argues that if the defendant‘s decision to improperly restrain the children in her vehicle or her “dangerous driving” -- including inattentiveness, an unsafe lane change, collision with the guardrail, and overcorrection into oncoming traffic -- alone are not enough to satisfy the recklessness elements of both crimes, then, in the totality of the circumstances, her conduct was reckless. The Commonwealth cites Hendricks, 452 Mass. at 104-105, as support for its position that dangerous driving combined with other evidence is sufficient to show recklessness. The evidence here fell markedly short of the evidence that proved recklessness in Hendricks. The “dangerous driving” in Hendricks consisted of a deliberate high-speed nighttime chase
3. Conclusion.
Our cases demonstrate that something much greater than negligence is necessary to affirm convictions of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child. See Commonwealth v. Bouvier, 316 Mass. 489, 495 (1944). Where negligence may result from “inadvertence, incompetence, unskillfulness, or failure to take [adequate] precautions,” recklessness “requires a conscious choice of a course of action . . . with knowledge of the serious dangers to others involved” (citation omitted). Boyd v. National R.R. Passenger Corp., 446 Mass. 540, 547 (2006). Under that standard, there was not legally sufficient evidence to show that the defendant‘s conduct was wanton or reckless. Therefore, the judgments of conviction of manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child are reversed, the verdicts are set aside, and the case is remanded to the Superior Court for the entry of required findings of not guilty. The two convictions of negligent motor vehicle homicide are affirmed.
So ordered.
Notes
To the extent that the defendant makes a due process challenge (and it is not clear that she does) that the prosecutor‘s other comments that appealed to juror sympathies warrant a new trial on the negligent homicide convictions, we disagree. The prosecutor stated that first responders “did not need to see” what they saw when responding to the accident. At the end of the prosecutor‘s closing argument, the judge specifically identified the statement and forcefully instructed the jury to disregard it. The instruction adequately cured any potential prejudice regarding the negligent homicide convictions. See Commonwealth v. Taylor, 455 Mass. 372, 385 (2009).