People v. DanielsPeople v. Daniels
Defendant, Kalin Andrew Daniels, appeals his judgment of conviction for second degree assault-causing serious bodily injury. The victim of the assault suffered a frаctured rib and a lacerated spleen. Defendant asserts that neither of these injuries amounted to “serious bodily injury,” as defined by
I. Background
Taken in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the evidence at trial established the following facts:
On March 27, 2008, after a visit from their landlord, the defendant and the victim, who was his live-in girlfriend, argued over, among other things, issues concerning their past due rent. The argument ended when the victim walked away and defendant punched her in the lower back.
Thе victim then ran to a neighbor‘s house, where she was having difficulty breathing and crying in pain. She told the neighbor that defendant had hit her, and the neighbor called 911. An ambulance was dispatched, but the victim refused to go to the hospital.
The next morning, the victim awoke in significant pain, and her grandmother took her to the hospital. At the hospital, the victim told the emergency room doctor who was treating her that she had been assaulted. Various tests revealed that the victim had a fracture to the ribs of the left flank, where she had been hit, as well as a grade three, or moderately severe, splenic laceration, which was bleeding internally.
The victim was admitted to the intensivе care unit (ICU), where she was monitored for increasing signs of illness, discomfort, or loss of blood, which would have required removal of her spleen. She, however, recovered after several days without the need for surgery.
For her part, the victim testified that although she had told her neighbors and the emergency room doctor, among others, that her injuries resulted from an assault by defendant, she was not telling the truth when she made these allegations. Rather, she claimed at trial to have lied previously to get revenge on defendant. She further testified that she actually was injured in a fall from the deck of her home.
At the conclusion of the prosecution‘s case, defendant moved for judgment of acquittal on the second degree assault charge. The court denied this motion. Subsequently, the jury, apparently rejecting the victim‘s attempted retraction of her prior accusations against defendant, convicted defendant of, among other things, second degree assault.
Defendant now appeals his conviction.
II. Standard of Review
When a party challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, “a reviewing court must determine whether the evidence, viewed as a whole and in the light most favorable to the prosecution, is sufficient to support a conclusion by a reasonable person that the defendant is guilty of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt.” People v. Valdez, 56 P.3d 1148, 1151 (Colo.App.2002). The evidence can be either direct or circumstantial, but it must be both substantial and sufficient to support the determination of guilt. Id. “It is the duty of the fact finder in a criminal case to determine the credibility of the witnesses, to consider whаt weight should be given to all parts of the evidence, and to resolve conflicts, inconsistencies, and disputes in the evidence.” Id.
As relevant here, a person commits second degree assault when, “[w]ith intent to causе bodily injury to another person, he causes serious bodily injury to that person or another.”
bodily injury which, either at the time of the actual injury or at a later time, involves a substantial risk of death, a substantial risk of serious permanеnt disfigurement, a substantial risk of protracted loss or impairment of the function of any part or organ of the body, or breaks, fractures, or burns of the second or third degree.
Defendant asserts that the prosecution failed to establish that the victim‘s broken rib was of the second or third degree, which, defendant claims, was required to prove serious bodily injury under
Statutory interpretation is a question of law that we review de novo. People v. Jaramillo, 183 P.3d 665, 671 (Colo.App.2008). Our primary purpose in statutory interpretation is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the General Assembly. Id. We first look to the language of the statute, giving words and phrases their plain and ordinary meaning. Id. We read words and phrases in context, and construe them according to their common usage. Id. When a statute does not define its terms but the words used are terms of common usage, we may refer to dictionary definitions to determine the plain and оrdinary meanings of those words. People v. Janousek, 871 P.2d 1189, 1196 (Colo. 1994).
In addition, we must interpret a statute in a way that best effectuates the purpose of the legislative scheme. Moffett v. Life Care Centers, 187 P.3d 1140, 1143 (Colo. App.2008), aff‘d, 219 P.3d 1068 (Colo.2009). When a court construes a statute, it should read and consider the statute as а whole and interpret it in a manner giving consistent, harmonious, and sensible effect to all of its parts. Id. In doing so, a court should not interpret the statute so as to render any part of it either meaningless or absurd. Id. at 1144.
If the statute is unambiguous, we look no further. Id. If a statute is ambiguоus, however, then we may consider prior law, legislative history, the consequences of a given construction, and the underlying purpose or policy of the statute. Id.
Applying these principles here, we note initially that it is not common and ordinary usage to speak of second or third degree breaks or fractures, as opposed to second or third degree burns. Although our own research has revealed a few isolated references to degrees of fractures in medical literature, the several medical dictionaries that we have consulted do not refer to degrees of breaks or fractures, although they discuss numerous types of fractures (e.g., “complicated” fractures, “compound” fractures, “impacted” fractures, “incomplete” fractures, and “pilon” fractures). See, e.g., Am.Jur. Proof of Facts 3d Attorney‘s Illustrated Medical Dictionary F40-F45 (2002 & Supp. July 2008); Stedman‘s Medical Dictionary 686-88 (26th ed.1995).
In cоntrast, medical and nonmedical dictionaries alike routinely refer to the various degrees of burns. See, e.g., Am.Jur. Proof of Facts 3d Attorney‘s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, at B38-B39; Stedman‘s Medical Dictionary, at 251; Webster‘s Third New International Dictionary 299 (2002).
Accordingly, giving the words and phrases of
Our conclusion in this regard is consistent with the structure of
In 1985, however, before the phrase “breaks, fractures, or burns of the second or third degree” was added, the statute was amended to repeat the phrase “a substantial risk of” in both the second and third сlauses of the definition. Ch. 149, sec. 1, § 18-1-901(3)(p), 1985 Colo. Sess. Laws 664. This amendment suggests to us that when the General Assembly sought to have a modifier apply to each term in a series in this statute, it did so expressly. When the General Assembly later amended the statute to add “breaks, fractures, or burns of the second or third degree,” however, it did not include the phrase “of the second or third degree” after “breaks” or “fractures.” This confirms our view that “of the second or third degrеe” modifies only “burns.” Ch. 73, sec. 8, § 18-1-901(3)(p), 1991 Colo. Sess. Laws 405. Indeed, to construe the statute otherwise would require us to interpret the first half of the definition of “serious bodily injury” one way and the second half a different way. Because we must interpret a statute giving consistent, harmonious, and sensible effect to all of its parts, see Moffett, 187 P.3d at 1143, we reject such a construction.
For these reasons, we conclude that any break or fracture is sufficient to establish “serious bodily injury” under
IV. Conclusion
For these reasons, the judgment is affirmed.
Judge CONNELLY concurs.
Judge GRAHAM specially concurs.
Judge GRAHAM specially concurring.
I write separately because, unlike the majority, I see no need to reach a question of statutory interpretation regarding “breaks, fractures, or burns of the second or third degree.”
The evidence adduced at trial established that the victim suffered a grade three laceration or rupture of the spleen and was bleeding internally. She was hospitalized and placed in the intensive care unit for several days while her blood counts were monitored in order to determine whether she rеquired surgery to remove her spleen. The testimony of a physician established that the spleen function was impaired enough to subject her to risk of death from the internal bleeding. He also testified that patients who suffer grаde three ruptures are administered fluids intravenously and sometimes blood transfusions. Without intensive care, monitoring, and stabilization, patients with grade three spleen lacerations face a risk of dying.
The statute here unambiguоusly defines serious bodily injury as including “bodily injury which, either at the time of the actual injury or at a later time, involves ... a substantial risk of protracted loss or impairment of the function of any part or organ of the body.”
Reviewing the testimony and evidence in the record as we are required to do, in the light most favorable to the prosecution, Mata-Medina v. People, 71 P.3d 973, 983 (Colo.2003), I conclude that there was ample evidence to support the jury‘s finding that the victim suffered a serious bodily injury on the basis of her ruptured spleen.