Using Other Bad Acts to Prove Malice in a Vehicular Homicide Case

Among the most recent batch of opinions issued by the Court of Appeals was State v. Tellez, in which the court upheld the defendant’s conviction of two counts of second-degree murder and one count of felonious hit and run arising from a fatal car crash. Here are the facts: Defendant went to a party in Coats, NC around 1 p.m. on March 4, 2007, where he drank three beers. Three hours later, defendant and his friends, Castro and Childers, left the party in Castro’s car. Defendant drove and, while he was driving, began to drink a fourth beer. As defendant approached an intersection with a state highway, he slowed, but did not stop. Indeed, defendant drove around a car that had stopped at the intersection and drove straight into the path of a truck driven by Dwayne Braswell and in which Braswell’s nine-year-old son, Jerry, was a passenger. After the collision, the truck rolled several times and caught on fire. Paramedics were unable to help Mr. Braswell or his son because of the fire. Their bodies burned beyond recognition. Defendant ran from the scene. Childers told the trooper who arrived on the scene that the defendant “was drunk and ran, got scared.” But Childers testified at trial that she did not know whether Tellez “was intoxicated” and “didn’t think he was.”

Tellez argued on appeal that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the second-degree murder charge because there was no evidence that he was driving while impaired. The court rejected this contention. Noting that second-degree murder is an unlawful killing with malice but without premeditation and deliberation, the court explained that there must be an intentional act sufficient to show malice. To prove malice in operating a motor vehicle, the State must prove that the defendant intended to drive in a reckless manner that reflected knowledge that injury or death would likely result, thus evidencing depravity of mind. Conduct other than impaired driving can arise to this level of recklessness.

The Tellez court concluded that the evidence of defendant’s (1) reckless driving, (2) consumption of alcohol before and during driving, (3) prior convictions for impaired driving and driving while license revoked, and (4) flight and elusive behavior after the collision constituted substantial evidence of malice based upon depravity of mind.

That the defendant’s reckless driving and his consumption of alcohol would be considered evidence of driving in such a way that reflects knowledge that injury or death would likely result-in other words, malice-seems rather obvious. This post is focused on the latter two categories of evidence, the defendant’s prior convictions and his post-crash conduct.

North Carolina’s appellate courts have consistently held that a defendant’s prior driving convictions are admissible to pursuant to Rule 404(b) to show malice in a second-degree murder prosecution based on the defendant’s driving. See, e.g., State v. Maready, 362 N.C. 614 (2008); State v. Goodman, 147 N.C. App. 57 (2002) (Greene, J., dissenting), rev’d, 357 N.C. 43 (2003) (per curium, adopting dissenting opinion); State v. Rich, 351 N.C. 386 (2000).

As most readers know, Rule 404(b) of the NC Rules of Evidence provides that evidence of other crimes, wrongs and acts by a defendant may not be admitted to prove that the defendant acted in conformity with that bad character in committing the instant offense. In other words, a prior impaired driving conviction may not be considered by the jury as evidence that, since the defendant previously drove while impaired, he did so on this occasion as well. Despite its provisions excluding the introduction of relevant evidence of other crimes, wrongs or acts by a defendant, Rule 404(b) otherwise is a rule of inclusion. Evidence of other bad acts and crimes, if relevant, may be introduced for other purposes, including establishing the defendant’s state of mind.

While 404(b) evidence must bear similarity and temporal proximity to the instant offense, courts generally have viewed a defendant’s entire record of traffic convictions to be relevant to whether the defendant exhibited malice by driving a manner that caused a fatal accident. In Tellez, the trial court admitted evidence that defendant had previously been convicted of driving while license revoked and impaired driving.

It is not entirely clear whether North Carolina’s appellate courts would sanction the admission of evidence of a prior impaired driving conviction as evidence of malice if the conduct giving rise to the murder charge did not involve driving after consuming alcohol or some other impairing substance. In State v. Lloyd, 187 N.C. App. 174 (2007), the defendant was charged with second-degree murder after he stole a van, fled from police, drove recklessly, and crashed into another car, killing both of its occupants. Lloyd was sober, but his driver’s license was revoked. The State introduced evidence of Lloyd’s prior refusal to submit to a breath test and his accompanying arrest and conviction of impaired driving. The trial court instructed the jury that this evidence “was received solely for the purpose of showing that the defendant had the knowledge that his license was suspended” on the date of the offense and, further, that driving with a suspended license suspension was evidence of malice. The court of appeals characterized the evidence that defendant drove knowing his license revoked as “fundamental” to proving malice and held that the danger of unfair prejudice was mitigated by the trial court’s limiting instruction. The appellate court failed to explain how driving with a revoked license evidences reckless-rather than simply unlawful-behavior.

Evidence of Tellez’s behavior after the collision likewise is admissible under Rule 404(b) as probative of his depravity of mind since post-offense conduct, like prior bad acts, can be relevant to establishing the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the offense. Cf. State v. Grice, 131 N.C. App. 48 (1998) (characterizing comments by trial court at sentencing that defendant’s “total lack of remorse” as evidenced by his failure to ask whether someone was hurt in the car he crashed into “implies . . . a lack of consciousness [and] total disregard for the laws of this State” as drawing a parallel between defendant’s lack of remorse and the malice necessary to support a second-degree murder conviction).

Tellez doesn’t change the landscape of the law applicable to murder prosecutions arising from vehicle crashes, though it does provide one more set of tragic facts held to establish malice. The last portion of the opinion explains that Childers’ statements to the trooper at the scene of the crash that Tellez “was drunk” were properly admitted into evidence, notwithstanding Childers’ testimony at trial that she did not think Tellez was intoxicated. I’ve waxed on too long already, so I won’t attempt to explain how the court concluded that these statements amounted to corroboration rather than inadmissible hearsay. (Plus, I can’t figure out what these statements corroborated.) Can any of our loyal readers explain this reasoning? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

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