STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff - Appellee, vs. CHRISTOPHER JON McCOY , Defendant - Appellant.
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 8-818 / 07-1657
Filed November 26, 2008
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
CHRISTOPHER JON McCOY,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Cerro Gordo County, Stephen P.
Carroll, Judge.
Christopher McCoy appeals from his convictions for child endangerment
resulting in death, and involuntary manslaughter resulting from a public offense.
AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED AND REMANDED IN PART.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Shellie Knipfer, Assistant
Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Darrel Mullins, Assistant Attorney
General, Paul L. Martin, County Attorney, and Gregg Rosenbladt, Assistant
County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Huitink, P.J., and Vaitheswaran and Potterfield, JJ.
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HUITINK, P.J.
Christopher McCoy appeals from his convictions of child endangerment
resulting in death, and involuntary manslaughter resulting from a public offense.
McCoy contends the trial court erred in denying his request for a separate
defense of accident jury instruction. Alternatively, he seeks merger of his two
convictions.
The State concedes that McCoy‟s involuntary manslaughter
conviction should be merged into the greater offense of child endangerment
resulting in death. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
The record indicates McCoy lived with Mindy Prazak and her twenty-five
month-old son, Riley. Riley died of head injuries sustained while in McCoy‟s
care.
The State‟s trial information as amended charged McCoy with first-degree
murder and child endangerment resulting in death. Under the State‟s version of
the evidence, McCoy became angry at Riley and slammed or threw him down,
causing the head injuries resulting in Riley‟s death. McCoy denied the State‟s
allegations and claimed Riley was injured when he accidently fell out of bed.
At trial, McCoy requested the jury be instructed as follows:
It is the theory of defense that Riley died from injuries he sustained
due to an accidental fall. If the cause of the injury was due to an
accidental fall, that is a complete defense to all of the charges. If
after considering all of the evidence and jury deliberations, you
have a reasonable doubt as to whether or not Riley died as a result
of an accidental fall, you must find the Defendant not guilty.
The trial court denied McCoy‟s request for the following reasons:
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Accident has loosely been called an affirmative defense, but
it really negates guilt by canceling out any of what we know as the
mens rea requirements, the level of guilt.
....
Here the theory is that [McCoy] was asleep and that he
indicated “I don‟t know quite what happened except I heard a
couple thumps that woke me up and there Riley is on the floor.” So
his theory of the defense, so to speak, is that he had nothing to do
with what happened, which is really not an affirmative defense, but
is a complete denial. And I think I‟ve adequately instructed on the
law to be applied to the case.
In addition to instructing the jury on the State‟s duty to prove each element of the
offenses charged beyond a reasonable doubt, the court also instructed the jury:
To commit a crime a person must intend to do an act which is
against the law. While it is not necessary that a person knows the
act is against the law, it is necessary that the person was aware he
was doing the act and he or she did so voluntarily, not by mistake
or accident.
The jury returned guilty verdicts on the child endangerment resulting in death
count, as well as involuntary manslaughter resulting from a public offense, a
lesser-included offense under the first-degree murder count.
The trial court
denied McCoy‟s motion for a new trial and separately sentenced McCoy to
indeterminate consecutive five and fifty-year terms of incarceration resulting in
this appeal.
II. Jury Instruction.
We review alleged errors in jury instructions for errors at law. Iowa R.
App. P. 6.4; Boyle v. Alum-Line, Inc., 710 N.W.2d 741, 748 (Iowa 2006). Error in
giving or refusing jury instructions does not merit reversal unless the error results
in prejudice to the party. Sonnek v. Warren, 522 N.W.2d 45, 47 (Iowa 1994).
“Prejudice exists when the rights of the defendant „have been injuriously affected‟
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or the defendant „has suffered a miscarriage of justice.‟” State v. Hartsfield, 681
N.W.2d 626, 633 (Iowa 2004).
The defendant is entitled to a theory of defense instruction if the
instruction is timely requested and supported by the evidence.
State v.
McFarland, 598 N.W.2d 318, 321 (Iowa Ct. App. 1999). There is no error if the
substance of the requested instruction is included in other instructions. State v.
Freeman, 267 N.W.2d 69, 70-71 (Iowa 1978).
Contrary to McCoy‟s claims, we conclude his theory of accident was
sufficiently addressed by the earlier quoted jury instruction that was submitted, as
well as the jury instructions requiring the State to prove all of the elements of
each offense beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., State v. Johnston, 221 Iowa
933, 941-42, 267 N.W. 698, 702 (1936) (instruction requiring State to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that fatal shot fired by defendant was intentional and
not accidental).
Even if we were to conclude otherwise, the record fails to establish that
McCoy was prejudiced by the trial court‟s refusal to submit the proposed
instruction. McCoy could and did argue his accidental death theory to the jury.
Moreover, the State presented a formidable array of physicians and expert
witnesses whose opinions supported the State‟s version of the cause of Riley‟s
head injuries and resulting death. An emergency room physician testified that a
fall such as that described in Riley‟s history “doesn‟t produce all of the signs we
saw in [Riley].” An intensive care physician who treated Riley testified Riley‟s
symptoms “did not fit the reported method of injury.” A forensic pathologist who
performed Riley‟s autopsy testified that the cause of Riley‟s death was blunt force
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injury to the head. He also noted the inconsistency with the history given to him.
Moreover, the State‟s experts rebutted testimony by McCoy‟s expert witness, a
biomedical engineer, that low level gravitational falls are lethal to children. See,
e.g., State v. Griffin, 576 N.W.2d 594, 597-98 (Iowa 1998) (instructional error was
not prejudicial because weight of evidence of guilt was overwhelming). We affirm
on this issue.
III. Merger.
As noted earlier, the State concedes that McCoy‟s manslaughter and child
endangerment convictions should be merged.
We accordingly reverse and
remand to the trial court for entry of an amended judgment of conviction and
sentence in conformity with our opinion.
We have carefully considered all of the issues McCoy raised on appeal
and find them without merit or controlled by the foregoing.
AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED AND REMANDED IN PART.
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