Opinion
No. 13–P–1520.
12-29-2016
COMMONWEALTH v. James COYLE.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 1:28
After trial, a Superior Court jury convicted the defendant of leaving the scene of an accident causing property damage without stopping to provide required identifying information. G.L. c. 90, § 24(2)(a ). The charges were based on evidence that, after getting into an argument with his mother and stepfather (parents) at their home, the defendant drove his truck across their lawn and, in the process, caused extensive damage. We affirm.
The defendant also was convicted of two counts of assault by means of a dangerous weapon, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, unlawful possession of a firearm having previously been convicted of a violent crime, and malicious destruction of property. Although those charges were the primary focus of the trial, no issues related to them have been put forward on appeal. The judge entered a required finding of not guilty with respect to operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license, and the jury acquitted the defendant of carrying a dangerous weapon.
On appeal, the defendant argued that the evidence was legally insufficient for two reasons. First, he argued that driving on a public way is an element of the crime, and that here, it was indisputable that no public way was involved. This issue recently has been resolved in the Commonwealth's favor by Commonwealth v. LeBlanc, 475 Mass. 820, 823–824 (2016) (driving on a public way not an element of leaving the scene after causing property damage).
In LeBlanc, supra at 824, the court repudiated dicta set forth in Commonwealth v. Platt, 440 Mass. 396, 400 n.5 (2003), that driving on a public way was a required element. In the case before us, based on the Platt dicta, the Commonwealth had supported vacating the defendant's conviction, while urging us nevertheless to comment on the defendant's second argument. Because we were aware that the Supreme Judicial Court had granted further appellate review in LeBlanc, we sua sponte stayed the current appeal pending a decision in that case.
The defendant's second argument is that a defendant cannot be prosecuted for failing to supply the requisite identifying information where his identity was already well known to the people to whom he otherwise was supposed to report. The relevant portion of the statute states as follows:
"whoever without stopping and making known his name, residence and the register number of his motor vehicle goes away after knowingly colliding with or otherwise causing injury to any other vehicle or property ... shall be punished."
G.L. c. 90, § 24(2)(a ), as appearing in St.1975, c. 156, § 1. Although the statute does not specify to whom such identifying information must be provided, case law has interpreted this as "those whose person or property has been injured, if reasonably possible, and if not to some one in their interest or to some public officer or other person at or near the place and time of injury." Commonwealth v. Horsfall, 213 Mass. 232, 236 (1913).
It is uncontested that after the defendant damaged the lawn but before he drove away, he did not stop and report his name, address, and registration number of his vehicle to his parents. However, not surprisingly, it is also undisputed that the parents knew their son's name and address, and they were familiar with his truck (which had been parked at their house for several months). Under these facts, we are not unsympathetic to the defendant's point that his stopping to provide the required identifying information would have served little, if any, purpose. However, the limited question before us is whether there was sufficient evidence to support each element of the crime charged. If so, whether to press such charges lay within the prosecutorial discretion of the Commonwealth.
Although the statute uses the dated term "register number," the case law uses that term as synonymous with "registration number ." Commonwealth v. Platt, 440 Mass. 396, 400 n.5 (2003).
Put differently, the defendant's failure to identify himself and his truck to his parents with respect to damage caused by the vehicle in their presence appears to lie far from the core behavior that the statute was intended to criminalize.
As the case law has long established, one is not excused from reporting the required information based on a belief that the relevant people at the scene already knew it. Commonwealth v. Joyce, 326 Mass. 751, 753 (1951). In Joyce, supra at 752, the court upheld a conviction of leaving the scene of an accident without providing the required information, even though the defendant believed that responding police officers knew his identity, and the evidence established that those officers in fact knew him by name, had a general idea of where he lived, and were able to observe the vehicle in question.
The defendant's case is arguably more compelling than that in Joyce. Here, his parents indisputably knew who he was, where he lived, and which vehicle caused the property damage, and he presumably would have been aware that they knew this information without relying on any surmise. Thus, there is some force to the defendant's contention that he generally had satisfied his obligation to see that such identifying information was "ma[de] known" to his parents. G.L. c. 90, § 24(2)(a ). However, we cannot presume that his parents necessarily knew the registration number of his vehicle. Therefore, even under the defendant's theory of the case, his failure to comply with the specific statutory command to stop and provide his vehicle's registration number constituted a violation of G.L. c. 90, § 24(2)(a ). Whether to prosecute such a violation fell to the Commonwealth.
See Commonwealth v. Horsfall, 213 Mass. at 236 ("[The statute] imposes active and positive duties upon the operator of the automobile.... In unmistakable language it requires the tendering on the spot and immediately of explicit and definite information as to himself of a nature which will identify him readily, and make it simple and easy to find him thereafter").
Judgments affirmed.