State v. SwigerState v. Swiger
Dated: August 14, 2013
WHITMORE, Judge.
{¶1} Defendant-Appellant, Melissa Swiger, appeals from her convictions in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas. This Court reverses.
I
{¶2} On the morning of August 23, 2011, Swiger stopped her minivan in the middle of Waterloo Road, exited the minivan, and opened the driver’s side rear passenger door. She then removed her three-year old son from the minivan, placed him in the middle of the four-lane road, returned to the driver’s seat, and drove off. A woman who resided on Waterloo Road saw Swiger place her son in the middle of the road and ran into traffic to rescue him.
{¶3} Subsequently, Swiger drove through the intersection of Waterloo Road and South Main Street at an excessive rate of speed. Her minivan collided with two other vehicles. The collision seriously injured one of the other drivers involved, but Swiger only received minor injuries. After her minivan came to а stop, Swiger got out and began to walk down the middle of
{¶4} As a result of the events that occurred on August 23, 2011, a grand jury indicted Swiger on each of the following counts: (1) aggravated vehicular assault, in violation of
{¶5} With the exception of the minor misdemeanor offenses for red light and reckless operation, all of Swiger‘s counts were tried to a jury. Near the conclusion of the trial, the trial judge informed Swiger‘s counsel that she would not give the jury an NGRI instruction on either the aggravated vehicular assault count or the OVI count, as the former was a strict liability offense and the latter was both a strict liability offense and a traffic offense. Consequently, the jury only received an NGRI instruction on the counts for hit skip and child endangering. The jury found Swiger guilty on all four counts. The court then found Swiger guilty on the two minor misdemeanor counts. The court sentenced Swiger to a total of four years in prison.
{¶6} Swiger now appeals and raises two assignments of error for our review.
Assignment of Error Number One
THE TRIAL COURT‘S REFUSAL TO INSTRUCT THE JURY ON A PLEA OF NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANITY VIOLATED THE APPELLANT‘S DUE PROCESS RIGHTS.
{¶7} In her first assignment of error, Swiger argues that the trial court erred by refusing to issue the jury an NGRI instruction with regard to her aggravated vehicular assault аnd OVI counts. We agree.
{¶8} While the precise language of a given jury instruction is a matter of discretion for the trial court, “[a] trial court must charge a jury with instructions that are a correct and complete statement of the law.” State v. Estright, 9th Dist. Summit No. 24401, 2009-Ohio-5676, ¶ 46. “A trial court does not err by refusing to issue an instruction to which a defendant, as a matter of law, is not entitled.” State v. Floyd, 9th Dist. Summit No. 25880, 2012-Ohio-3551, ¶ 7. The question of whether a court‘s instructions were correct, as a matter of law, is one that this Court reviews de novo. State v. Cook, 9th Dist. Summit No. 26360, 2012-Ohio-4250, ¶ 6. “A de novo review requires an independent review of the trial court‘s decision without any deference to the trial court‘s determination.” State v. Baumeister, 9th Dist. Summit No. 23805, 2008-Ohio-110, ¶ 4.
{¶9} In State v. Ungerer, 87 Ohio App.3d 110 (9th Dist.1993), this Court held that a defendant was not entitled to plead NGRI to an OVI charge under
{¶10} Ungerer‘s sole charge was a single violation of
{¶11} The second basis upon which the trial court denied Swiger‘s request for an NGRI instruction on her aggravated vehicular assault and OVI counts was that both counts were strict liability offenses. Specifically, Swiger‘s OVI count only required the State to prove that she operated a vehicle while “under the influence of alcohol, a drug of abuse, or a combination of them.”
{¶12} “[A]n affirmative defense is in the nature of a ‘confession and avoidance,’ in which the defendant admits the elements of the crime, but seeks to prove some additional fact that absolves the defendant of guilt.” State v. Rhodes, 63 Ohio St.3d 613, 625 (1992). Insanity is an affirmative defense that “fit[s] the confession-and-avoidance definition.” Id. “A person is ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ relative to a charge of an offense only if the person proves * * * that at the time of the commission of the offense, the person did not know, as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, the wrongfulness of the person‘s acts.”
{¶13} Prior to the General Assembly‘s adoption of the NGRI test set forth in
{¶14} In State v. Wilcox, 70 Ohio St.2d 182 (1982),1 the Ohio Supreme Court discussed at length the difference between the defenses of insanity and diminished capacity; the latter of which the Court rejected as an available defense in Ohio. As to “the critical difference between the legal cоncepts of mens rea and insanity,” the Court recognized that “[t]he former refers to the existence in fact of a ‘guilty mind‘” while insanity “connotes a presumption that a particular individual lacks the capacity to possess such a state of mind.” Wilcox at 191, quoting Bethea v. United States, 365 A.2d 64, 87 (D.C.App.1976). The Court further recognized that:
[t]he determination of capacity to form an intent - to find whether or not the alleged offender intended to do, in the sense of the criminal law, what he in fact did - requires а fine tuning of an entirely different nature than that required for the admission of evidence on the general question of insanity for the determination of whether or not there should be criminal responsibility * * *. To make * * * (the insanity) determination requires no fine tuning. It is, rather, a gross evaluation that a person‘s conduct and mental state is so beyond the limits of accepted norms that to hold him criminally responsible would be unjust. This is a far cry frоm accepting testimony which purports to prove or disprove a specific intent, as distinguished from criminal responsibility.
Wilcox at 192, quoting Steele v. State, 97 Wis.2d 72, 96-97, 294 N.W.2d 2 (1980). “The insanity defense asks [jurors] to distinguish between a large group of offenders who are punishable for their acts despite their mental deficiencies, and a small class of offenders who are so mentally
{¶15} Several years after Wilcox, the Supreme Court gave a clear directive regarding the difference between the mens rea element of an offense and the affirmative defense of insanity. Specifically, the Court wrote that “in Ohio[,] the insanity defense operates independently of the mental element of an offense.” State v. Curry, 45 Ohio St.3d 109, 111 (1989). The State in Curry had argued that insanity was not a defense to negligent vehicular homicide because insanity was only available as a defense when it negated the intent element of an offense. Id. In rejecting that view, the Supreme Court wrote that:
the insanity defense is and always has been broader in scope than the posture argued by the [S]tate. While it is true that a legally insane defendant may lack the capacity to form the specific intent to commit a particular crime, criminal intent or lack thereof is not the focus оf the insanity question. Rather, the insanity defense goes to the very root of our criminal justice system and is founded on the broader principle that an insane person may not be held criminally responsible for his conduct.
Curry at 112. Consequently, “where the [S]tate has proved every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, including the mental element, the accused may present evidence that he was insane at the time of the offense and thus should not be held criminally responsible.” Id. “Insanity may be a defense to any crime regardless of whether the particular offense requires that the defendant‘s conduct be purposeful, knowing, reckless, or negligent.” Id. at syllabus. Neither Staten, nor Wilcox, nor Curry, however, explicitly addressed strict liability crimes.
{¶16} This Court has recognized that “a strict liability offense does not implicate a culpable mental state.” State v. Scott, 9th Dist. Summit No. 24149, 2008-Ohio-6439, ¶ 6. Strict liability is imposed in circumstances:
where the purpose of [a] statute is to proteсt the victim[] regardless of the mental state of the defendant; where it would be almost impossible to prove guilty
knowledge; where the defendant has the sole opportunity to guard against the forbidden conduct and ascertain the true facts; where there exists a serious and substantial harm to the public from such conduct; where the offense is one of the eight categories of offenses amenable to striсt liability; and where the offense belongs to the mala prohibita class of offenses which are not inherently wrong in and of themselves unless designated as wrong by the legislature * * *.
State v. Buehler Food Markets, Inc., 50 Ohio App.3d 29, 31 (9th Dist.1989). The legislative purpose behind
{¶17} In addition to any culpable mental state that might be specified, every criminal act requires a person‘s liability to be “based on conduct that includes either a voluntary act, or an omission to perform an act or duty that the person is capable of performing.”
{¶18} This Court has considered the appropriateness of jury instructions on involuntariness and unconsciousness with regard to a violation of
[t]he act of driving a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol (or drugs, or a combination of both) is a voluntary act in the eyes of the law, and the duty to refrain from doing sо is one that in the interests of public safety must be enforced by strict criminal liability without the necessity of proving a culpable state of mind. A review of the statute discloses that the legislature has defined the offense in terms of the factual presence of an alcoholic influence, without reference to the offender‘s mental state.
(Internal citations omitted.) Moine at 587. Consequently, we concluded that the trial court did not err by refusing to instruct the jury on involuntariness and unconsciousness. Id. at 587.
{¶20} Several factors support the argument that the strict liability nature of an offense, standing alone, should not act as a per se bar to an NGRI instruction. As previously discussed, the insanity defense is one of confession and avoidance and “operates independently of the mental element of an offense.” Curry, 45 Ohio St.3d at 111. The defense does not negate the mens rea element of an offense even when one exists. Instead, it excuses a defendant from criminal liability in spite of the State‘s proof of the defendant‘s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Rhodes, 63 Ohio St.3d at 625. To hold that the absence of a mens rea element eliminates the insanity defense is to create a correlative relationship between the two where none exists. The Ohio Supreme Court has written on several occasions that the insanity defense encompasses the broader principle of criminal responsibility in general. See Curry at 112; Wilcox, 70 Ohio St.2d at 192-193; Staten, 18 Ohio St.2d at 20. Indeed, the Court has equated punishing an insane person with “inflicting punishment upon an inanimаte object,” as neither could know an action was wrong. Curry at 112, quoting Staten at 20. The Court‘s pronouncements on the subject of
{¶21} That conclusion also comports with the concept of voluntariness. As previously discussed, the “fundamental requirement” of the defendant having committed a voluntary act or omission “is entirely separate and distinct from the element оf ‘culpability’ which must also be established for all non-strict liability crimes.” Colon, 1992 WL 64173, at *2. The law recognizes that a period of unconsciousness may relieve a defendant of criminal responsibility for any actions committed during that period, as the defendant‘s actions are not volitional. See Peoples, 2011-Ohio-579, at ¶ 18. It is difficult to understand why a person suffering from insanity should be, in the eyes of the law, any more responsible for their actions than a persоn suffering from unconsciousness. As the Supreme Court noted, the insane “lack the minimal capacity to act voluntarily.” Wilcox at 193. Insanity encompasses more than just the mens rea element of an offense.
{¶22} We acknowledge that the conclusion that the strict liability nature of an offense, standing alone, should not act as a per se bar to an NGRI instruction arguably conflicts with this Court‘s decision in State v. Moine. Although Moine involved involuntariness/unconsciоusness instructions rather than an NGRI instruction, it is difficult to divine a meaningful distinction between the two classes of instructions for purposes of our discussion. Based on this Court‘s implicit departure from Moine in Peoples and the foregoing analysis of the insanity defense, we must conclude that Moine‘s logic cannot control the result here. We hold that, regardless of the nature of an offense, criminal responsibility cannot be imposed upon a person who is legally insane at the time of the commission of the offense. Therefore, the trial court here erred by refusing to give an NGRI instruction on Swiger‘s aggravated vehicular assault and OVI counts
{¶23} The record reflects that Swiger premised her defense in this case upon the theory that she was legally insane at the time she committed all of the charged offenses. The trial court permitted both sides to argue and present evidence on insanity to the jury throughout the trial. Thеn, directly before closing arguments, the trial judge informed both sides that she had conducted additional research and, based on that research, she would not be issuing an NGRI instruction on the strict liability counts. The court‘s decision eliminated Swiger‘s primary defense to two of her charges; namely, her aggravated vehicular assault and OVI charges. Because the court‘s decision came at the end of the trial, Swiger did not hаve the opportunity to pursue an alternative defense on the strict liability charges. The court‘s decision deprived Swiger of her right to have the jury apply the correct law to the evidence on each count and to render an independent verdict on each count. See State v. Brown, 12 Ohio St.3d 147 (1984), syllabus. We conclude that, by refusing to issue an NGRI instruction on all of Swiger‘s counts, the court committed reversible error. Swiger‘s first аssignment of error is sustained.
Assignment of Error Number Two
THE DEFENDANT RECEIVED INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL WHEN HER TRIAL COUNSEL FAILED TO PROPERLY RESEARCH THE ISSUE OF NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANITY PLEAS AS THEY RELATE TO TRAFFIC OFFENSES.
III
{¶25} Swiger‘s first assignment of error is sustained. Her second assignment of error is moot. The judgment of the Summit County Court of Common Pleas is reversed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with the foregoing opinion.
Judgment reversed, and cause remanded.
There were reasonable grounds for this appeal.
We order that a special mandate issue out of this Court, directing the Court of Common Pleas, County of Summit, State of Ohio, to carry this judgment into execution. A certified copy of this journal entry shall constitute the mandate, pursuant to
Immediately upon the filing hereof, this document shall constitute the journal entry of judgment, and it shall be file stamped by the Clerk of the Court of Appeals at which time the period for review shall begin to run.
Costs taxed to Appellee.
BETH WHITMORE
FOR THE COURT
CARR, J.
CONCUR.
APPEARANCES:
GREGORY A. PRICE, Attorney at Law, for Appellant.
SHERRI BEVAN WALSH, Prosecuting Attorney, and HEAVEN DIMARTINO, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for Appellee.