State of WV v. Hose
Annotate this Case
January 1992 Term
___________
No. 20514
___________
STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA,
Plaintiff Below, Appellee,
v.
RAY F. HOSE,
Defendant Below, Appellant
_______________________________________________________
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Doddridge County
Honorable Sam White, Judge
Criminal Action No. 90-M-6
AFFIRMED
_______________________________________________________
Submitted: April 28, 1992
Filed: May 28, 1992
Teresa A. Tarr
Assistant Attorney General
Charleston, West Virginia
Attorney for the Appellee
J. David Judy, III
Judy & Judy
Moorefield, West Virginia
Attorney for the Appellant
This Opinion was delivered PER CURIAM.
JUSTICE MILLER dissents and reserves the right to file a dissenting
opinion.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT
1. "In a criminal case, a verdict of guilt will not be
set aside on the ground that it is contrary to the evidence, where
the state's evidence is sufficient to convince impartial minds of
the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence
is to be viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution. To
warrant interference with a verdict of guilt on the ground of
insufficiency of evidence, the court must be convinced that the
evidence was manifestly inadequate and that consequent injustice
has been done." Syllabus point 1, State v. Starkey, 161 W.Va. 517,
244 S.E.2d 219 (1978).
2. "Although a witness may be qualified as an expert by
practical experience in a field of activity conferring special
knowledge not shared by mankind in general, the question of whether
a witness qualifies as an expert rests in the sound discretion of
the trial court, whose decision will not be disturbed unless it is
clearly wrong." Syllabus point 2, State v. Baker, 180 W.Va. 233,
376 S.E.2d 127 (1988).
Per Curiam:
This is an appeal by the defendant, Ray F. Hose, from an
order sentencing him to four one-year terms in the Doddridge County
Jail on four counts of involuntary manslaughter. The charges arose
out of a vehicle accident which resulted in the death of four
individuals. On appeal, the defendant argues that there was
insufficient evidence in the case to support a finding that he was
guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He also claims that the
verdict of the jury was inconsistent, that the trial court erred in
allowing a State trooper to offer expert reconstructionist evidence
when the trooper was not a qualified expert, that the court erred
in failing to remand the charges against him to a magistrate court,
and that the sentences imposed upon him constituted cruel and
unusual punishment. After reviewing the questions presented and
the record, this Court can find no reversible error. Accordingly,
the judgment of the Circuit Court of Doddridge County is affirmed.
The accident out of which the present case arises occurred at approximately 10:45 p.m. on September 3, 1990. At that time, the defendant was driving a tractor trailer in an eastbound direction on U.S. Route 50 in Doddridge County, West Virginia. The road surface was dry and the weather was clear, with a visibility of eight miles. As the defendant headed into a turn, the tractor trailer which he was driving left the highway, passed through a guardrail and into the median of the road. After travelling
through the median for approximately 230 feet, the vehicle became
airborne for approximately forty feet and landed upright in the
westbound lanes of Route 50 and slid across those lanes. In so
doing, it struck a 1987 Plymouth Colt station wagon which was
heading westbound. The defendant's vehicle pushed the station
wagon through the westbound guardrail, then landed on top of it.
A fire ensued. The occupants of the station wagon, a couple and
their two young children, were killed.
At the time of the accident, the defendant and a co-driver, Terry Sherman, had been on the road over twenty-one hours
and had made numerous deliveries of chicken from the tractor
trailer. The defendant had initially driven the vehicle from
approximately 1:00 a.m. until 5:30 a.m. During this time, the co-driver, Sherman, had rested in the sleeper berth. At approximately
5:40 a.m., the defendant got in the sleeper berth, where he
remained until 9:20 a.m. Between 9:20 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., the
defendant at various points dozed in the passenger seat of the
vehicle. At 4:00 p.m. the defendant got in the driver's seat and
made six deliveries before arriving at Parkersburg at around 9:00
p.m. There the defendant and Mr. Sherman made two other deliveries
and stopped at a McDonald's restaurant and ate dinner. They left
Parkersburg at approximately 9:45 p.m., at which time Mr. Sherman
entered the sleeper berth. As previously indicated, approximately
an hour later the accident giving rise to the present case
occurred.
Following the accident the defendant was indicted on four
counts of involuntary manslaughter in violation of W.Va. Code, 61-2-5, and one count of reckless driving in violation of W.Va. Code,
17C-5-3. A jury trial was conducted in the case on December 10,
1990. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury found the defendant
guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter as charged in the
indictment. The jury, however, found the defendant not guilty on
the reckless driving charge.
In the present proceeding, the defendant makes a number
of assignments of error relating to the sufficiency of the evidence
in the case. For instance, he claims that there was insufficient
evidence upon which to base a finding of guilt. He also claims
that the court erred in denying his motions for directed verdict at
the close of the State's opening statement and at the close of the
State's evidence in chief.
During trial, the State essentially took the position
that the defendant was guilty of the crimes charged because of his
conduct in the driving of the vehicle. The State showed that the
defendant had been on duty for twenty-one hours, in violation of
federal and state laws. The State further argued that the
defendant was driving at an excessive rate of speed and suggested
that he had failed to brake in an appropriate manner. In
conjunction with the long period which he had been on the road, the
State suggested that the defendant had gone to sleep at the wheel.
The defendant, on the other hand, contended that he was
forced off the road by a vehicle that had been passing him, falling
back, and passing again. He claimed that this vehicle had passed
directly in front of him and had caused him to pull to the left in
an effort to avoid an accident.
In syllabus point 1 of State v. Starkey, 161 W.Va. 517,
244 S.E.2d 219 (1978), this Court discussed the circumstances under
which a verdict of guilt in a criminal case will be set aside
because of the character of the evidence in the case. The Court
stated:
In a criminal case, a verdict of guilt
will not be set aside on the ground that it is
contrary to the evidence, where the state's
evidence is sufficient to convince impartial
minds of the guilt of the defendant beyond a
reasonable doubt. The evidence is to be
viewed in the light most favorable to the
prosecution. To warrant interference with a
verdict of guilt on the ground of
insufficiency of evidence, the court must be
convinced that the evidence was manifestly
inadequate and that consequent injustice has
been done.
In the present case the evidence did show that the
defendant had been on the road from approximately 1:00 a.m. until
10:45 p.m., the time of the accident. However, as previously
indicated, a good part of that time had been spent by the defendant
in the sleeper berth of the truck or dozing while he was riding in
the passenger seat. Other time had been spent at various stops
unloading chicken and eating.
Robert Runner, an enforcement officer with the West
Virginia Public Service Commission who conducted a post-accident
investigation, analyzed the time spent by the defendant on the day
of the accident in conjunction with various laws defining "on-duty"
time and testified during trial that the defendant had exceeded his
on-duty time in violation of federal and state laws and that under
federal and state safety laws the defendant, who had technically
been on duty for more than twenty-one hours, should have been on
duty no more than fifteen hours on the day of the accident.
To show that the defendant was going at an excessive
speed and that he had failed to brake in an appropriate manner, the
State called as a witness State Trooper L. J. Miller, whom the
State characterized as an accident reconstruction expert. Trooper
Miller indicated that at the initiation of the series of events
involved in the accident, the defendant was going into a curve and
that the absence of skid marks on the eastbound pavement of the
road suggested that the defendant did not apply his brakes as he
entered that curve. Further, the lack of skid marks on the
pavement and a furrow on the dirt area next to the eastbound
guardrail suggested that he did not apply the brakes after he left
the roadway and went over the guardrail. The first sign of braking
surfaced when the truck was in the median. Trooper Miller
concluded:
Based on the total distance traveled,
including the damaged guardrails, through
here, and the forty-eight feet and came across
another fourteen feet, we have a total
distance of five hundred seventy feet. If the
vehicle, not turning over, again, with the
grade in the median, beginning with eighteen
to twenty-nine percent, I would say that to be
a substantial speed to keep it upright through
all of the distance and through this . . . I
believe, with the total distance traveled, I
believe it would be a sufficient speed,
elevated speed to do that, to come through the
median without upsetting.
To determine whether this evidence supports the jury's
verdict in the present case, it is necessary to examine what
constitutes involuntary manslaughter in West Virginia.
In syllabus point 7 of State v. Barker, 128 W.Va. 744, 38 S.E.2d 346 (1946), this Court stated:
The offense of involuntary manslaughter
is committed when a person, while engaged in
an unlawful act, unintentionally causes the
death of another, or where a person engaged in
a lawful act, unlawfully causes the death of
another.
In State v. Lawson, 128 W.Va. 136, 36 S.E.2d 26 (1945), the Court
expounded upon the classic definition of involuntary manslaughter
as it relates to deaths resulting from the operation of a motor
vehicle. In Lawson, the Court noted that something more than
ordinary negligence is required to sustain an involuntary
manslaughter conviction in such cases. The Court stated:
In our opinion, to convict a person on a
charge of negligence, it must appear that the
act resulting in death is in itself unlawful,
or a lawful act performed in an unlawful
manner. It may be said that the commission of
an act in an unlawful manner makes that act
unlawful from the beginning. But all the
definitions of involuntary manslaughter seem
to recognize some distinction between an
unlawful act and a lawful act performed in an
unlawful, or even negligent, manner.
Violations of a statute or any improper,
reckless or wanton conduct of a nature
calculated to cause injury to another should,
in our opinion, be considered as acting in an
unlawful manner, however lawful that act might
have been if performed in a proper manner.
This rule would do nothing more than require
the State to show that the act, or the manner
of the performance of the act, for which
conviction is sought is unlawful and culpable,
and something more than the simple negligence,
so common in everyday life, in which there is
no claim that anyone has been guilty of
wrongdoing.
Id. at 147-148, 36 S.E.2d at 31-32.
The evidence adduced by the State in the present case
rather clearly shows that the defendant had exceeded the fifteen-hour on-duty requirement of both state and federal laws regulating
drivers of tractor trailers at the time of the accident. It is
apparent that the purpose of those laws is to promote safety by
insuring appropriate alertness in drivers by insuring that they
have an appropriate amount of rest while driving. The amount of
time that the defendant had been on duty markedly exceeded the
fifteen-hour limit provided by state and federal law and did not
constitute a simple technical violation.
Additionally, the State introduced evidence which could have been construed by the jury as showing that the defendant was proceeding at an excessive rate of speed and that he failed to maintain control of his vehicle while on the road. The testimony
of Trooper Miller suggests that the defendant ran the tractor
trailer off the road as he was heading into a turn. The tractor
trailer proceeded a substantial distance before it landed upright
on the other side of the road median. While Trooper Miller did not
testify as to the rate of speed at which the defendant was
travelling, he indicated that it had to be substantial for the
tractor trailer to remain upright after travelling over the east
bound lane, median, west bound lane, through the guardrails, and
then to land on top of the vehicle which contained the four
individuals who were killed.
In construing the overall evidence in the light most
favorable to the prosecution as is required by State v. Starkey,
supra, this Court believes that the evidence was sufficient to
convince impartial minds of the guilt of the defendant beyond a
reasonable doubt. The Court cannot conclude that the evidence was
manifestly inadequate or that consequent injustice has been done.
The defendant next claims that the jury's verdict was inconsistent because the jury found the defendant not guilty of the charge of reckless driving. In conjunction with this, he argues that reckless driving, which was involved in the fifth count of the indictment, was an element of involuntary manslaughter and, consequently, a element of the involuntary manslaughter counts, one through four, of the indictment and that reckless driving is, in effect, a lesser included offense in voluntary manslaughter. He
argues that because the jury specifically found that he was not
guilty of reckless driving by finding him innocent of the reckless
driving count in the indictment, the jury's finding that he was
guilty of involuntary manslaughter on the remaining counts of the
indictment was, in effect, inconsistent. He argues that the jury,
in effect, terminated further consideration of the involuntary
manslaughter charges upon the finding that he was not guilty of
reckless driving.
In State v. Hall, 174 W.Va. 599, 328 S.E.2d 206 (1985),
this Court addressed the question of whether inconsistent verdicts
would support reversal of a criminal conviction. The Court stated:
"Consistency in the verdict is not
necessary. Each count in an indictment is
regarded as if it was a separate indictment .
. . . As was said in Steckler v. United
States, 7 F.(2d) 59, 60 [(1925)]:
'The most that can be said in
such cases is that the verdict shows
that either in the acquittal or the
conviction the jury did not speak
their real conclusions, but that
does not show that they were not
convinced of the defendant's guilt.
We interpret the acquittal as no
more than their assumption of a
power which they had no right to
exercise, but to which they were
disposed through lenity.'"
Id. at 603, 328 S.E.2d at 210-211, quoting, Dunn v. United States,
284 U.S. 390, 52 S. Ct. 189, 76 L. Ed. 356 (1932).
In view of the holding in State v. Hall, this Court
cannot conclude that the apparent inconsistency of the verdicts in
the present case constituted reversible error.
The defendant claims that the State improperly used
Trooper L. J. Miller as a reconstruction expert. He points out
that Trooper Miller testified at the grand jury that he was not a
tractor and trailer expert, and he argues that under the
circumstances the trial court erred in allowing him to give
reconstruction testimony during trial.
In State v. Baker, 180 W.Va. 233, 376 S.E.2d 127 (1988),
this Court discussed expert witnesses and concluded in syllabus
point 2 that:
Although a witness may be qualified as an
expert by practical experience in a field of
activity conferring special knowledge not
shared by mankind in general, the question of
whether a witness qualifies as an expert rests
in the sound discretion of the trial court,
whose decision will not be disturbed unless it
is clearly wrong.
In the present case, Trooper Miller testified at some length regarding his background and experience in accident reconstruction. He essentially testified that he had had forty hours in basic accident investigation at the West Virginia State Police Academy, that he had had eighty hours of advanced accident investigation at the University of North Florida, that he had had eighty hours of technical accident investigation at Northwestern University, that he had had an eighty-hour accident reconstruction class at the
University of North Florida, that he had taken forty hours of
accident photography at the West Virginia State Police Academy, and
that, in effect, he had had some 320 hours of instruction in areas
related to accident investigation. He also testified that he was
a member of the Society of Accident Reconstructionists, that he had
personally handled over 600 accidents, and that he had worked with
the National Transportation Safety Board on accident investigation.
He further stated that he had investigated a number of tractor
trailer accidents.
Overall, there is substantial evidence indicating that
Trooper Miller had been previously involved in accident
investigations involving tractor trailers and that he had basic
training which would to some degree equip him for accident
investigation and reconstruction. Given these circumstances and
Trooper Miller's background, this Court cannot say that the trial
court's allowing him to testify as an expert witness constituted an
abuse of the trial court's sound discretion or that the trial
court's decision was clearly wrong in that matter.
The defendant argues that under W.Va. Code, 50-2-3, the magistrate court of a county shall have jurisdiction of all misdemeanor charges committed in the county. He claims that every count of the indictment returned against him was a misdemeanor count and that maximum penalty of incarceration for any of the charges was one year in the county jail. He indicates that there
was no felony charge against him and that under the circumstances
he had the right to a trial by a jury of his peers in magistrate
court on each of the charges in the indictment. He argues that by
allowing him to be tried in the circuit court, the circuit court
has, in effect, allowed the State to shop for a forum and
improperly denied the defendant his right to a jury trial in the
magistrate court in violation of the due process guarantees of the
State and Federal Constitutions.
Article VIII, section 6 of the West Virginia Constitution
and W.Va. Code, 51-2-2, afford circuit courts and magistrate courts
concurrent jurisdiction in misdemeanor cases. See State ex rel.
Burdette v. Scott, 163 W.Va. 705, 259 S.E.2d 626 (1979). A
magistrate court can only take exclusive jurisdiction once the
defendant is charged by warrant in that court within its
jurisdiction. Id. In State ex rel. Burdette v. Scott, supra, Id.
at 709, 259 S.E.2d at 630, the Court stated:
Under W.Va. Code, 62-1-10 (1965), a circuit
judge has the power to issue warrants and
thereby can initially assume jurisdiction.
Moreover, the prosecutor can initiate any
criminal proceeding through a grand jury
indictment. W.Va. Code, 62-2-1 (1931); State
v. Lucas, 129 W.Va. 324, 40 S.E.2d 817 (1946).
Either avenue makes the circuit court an
available forum for the trial of misdemeanor
offenses without the necessity of utilizing
the magistrate court.
Given the holding in the Burdette case, this Court cannot
conclude that the trial court erred by assuming jurisdiction of and
trying the present criminal matters.
Lastly, the defendant claims that the sentences imposed
upon him constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
As previously indicated, the defendant was convicted on
four counts of involuntary manslaughter. It appears that the trial
court sentenced him to four one-year terms in the Doddridge County
Jail. The trial court, however, suspended the sentences on Counts
III and IV and granted him probation for five years on those
counts. The court also provided that the sentences on Counts I and
II were to run concurrently with each other. The practical effect
of the court's action was that the defendant was required to serve
one year in the Doddridge County Jail and five years probation.
On appeal, the defendant claims that no useful purpose
can be served by incarcerating him and that by requiring him to
serve one year in jail, the trial court imposed cruel and unusual
punishment upon him.
Rather clearly, W.Va. Code, 61-2-5, provides that a person convicted of involuntary manslaughter "shall be confined in jail not to exceed one year . . . ." Moreover, this Court has recognized that when a defendant is charged with involuntary
manslaughter for multiple deaths arising from a single act, he may
receive as may sentences as there were deaths. State v. Myers, 171
W.Va. 277, 298 S.E.2d 813 (1982).
The Court is not persuaded that the sentences imposed in
the present case exceed the parameters allowed by our law.
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Circuit Court
of Doddridge County is affirmed.
Affirmed.
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