Summary
finding sufficient evidence of reckless driving where, in addition to driving 50 miles per hour over the speed limit on a winding, hilly road, the defendant ran a stop sign, repeatedly crossed and swerved over the center line, and eventually drove along active railroad tracks and then down the railway embankment into a marsh
Summary of this case from Ambacher v. StateOpinion
Court of Appeals No. A-12296 No. 6717
10-10-2018
JEFFREY LEE SNIDER, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Renee McFarland, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Terisia K. Chleborad, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE Memorandum decisions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law. Trial Court No. 3PA-14-3250 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Palmer, Gregory Heath, Judge. Appearances: Renee McFarland, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Terisia K. Chleborad, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Suddock, Superior Court Judge. Judge SUDDOCK.
Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 16 of the Alaska Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d).
Jeffrey Lee Snider appeals his conviction for first-degree failure to stop at the direction of a peace officer (felony eluding). Subsection (a)(2) of the felony eluding statute declares that a person commits felony eluding if, during the act of eluding a peace officer, the person commits the offense of reckless driving, AS 28.35.400.
AS 28.35.182(a). Snider pleaded guilty to driving with a license revoked, AS 28.15.291(a)(1).
At trial, Snider objected when the prosecutor argued that the jury could find that Snider committed the offense of reckless driving if Snider's driving created a substantial and unjustifiable risk of harm, even if only to himself and his vehicle alone. Snider argued that, as a matter of statutory interpretation, Alaska's reckless driving statute does not apply if the sole risk created by a driver was to himself or to his own vehicle.
The judge overruled this objection. Because the jury heard the argument on the objection as well as the judge's ruling, Snider now argues that the judge's ruling amounted to an instruction to the jury on the scope of the reckless driving statute. Snider again contends that the reckless driving statute only covers driving that creates a risk of harm to others, not driving that endangers only the driver or the driver's vehicle. Snider further argues that, because the judge did not inform the jury that the offense of reckless driving is circumscribed in this way, the jury may have convicted Snider solely for conduct that created a risk of harm to himself or to his truck alone, as opposed to a risk of harm to other people or property.
We conclude that we need not resolve Snider's argument about the scope of Alaska's reckless driving statute. Snider's driving was sufficiently egregious as to exclude any reasonable possibility that the jury convicted him based solely on the risk of harm to himself or to his vehicle. Accordingly, any error by the judge as to the scope of the reckless driving statute was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Background facts and proceedings
One morning in October 2014, Alaska State Trooper Leroy DeVeaux was patrolling near Wasilla in his marked patrol car. While stopped at an intersection, DeVeaux observed Snider's truck passing stopped cars by driving on the right shoulder of the road.
Trooper DeVeaux activated his lights and pursued Snider. Snider pulled into a gas station parking lot, drove around the station and its fuel pumps, and then accelerated onto a different road, running a stop sign. At that point, DeVeaux activated his siren and pursued Snider down the two-lane road.
This road was curved, and it traversed a mixed residential, commercial, and industrial zone. The road's curves and hills limited Snider's ability to see oncoming traffic. Snider repeatedly swerved over the center line. The road had a posted speed limit of thirty miles per hour; Snider accelerated to speeds exceeding eighty miles per hour.
Finally, Snider slowed, turned off the roadway, and drove his vehicle onto active railroad tracks. Trooper DeVeaux then broke off the chase. DeVeaux watched Snider drive along the railroad tracks and then veer down the railway embankment into an adjoining marsh — where Snider's truck broke through the ice and came to a stop. Snider fled his disabled truck on foot, but DeVeaux pursued and apprehended him.
The State charged Snider with first-degree failure to stop at the direction of a peace officer. During the prosecutor's summation to the jury at Snider's trial, he argued that Snider drove recklessly in several ways. Specifically, the prosecutor noted that Snider drove at least fifty miles per hour over the speed limit. The prosecutor added, "You couple that with, you know, running a stop sign; you couple that with driving on a railroad track, crashing, going off the embankment, crashing your vehicle."
The defense attorney in turn argued that Snider was only guilty of second-degree eluding, because his driving did not amount to reckless driving. Snider's defense attorney conceded that Snider's driving was "not good driving," but he argued that, because Snider had not encountered any vehicles during the chase (other than one at the outset), Snider's driving did not actually endanger anyone other than Snider himself.
During the prosecutor's rebuttal argument, he argued that when Snider drove down the railway embankment, he created a risk of harm to his own vehicle. Snider's defense attorney objected, arguing that the reckless driving statute did not apply to risks of harm solely to Snider or his vehicle, but only to risks that Snider created for others. The trial judge overruled the objection, stating that the reckless driving statute did not distinguish between "risk of harm to the individual [who was] driving or to other people." The judge stated that the jury "[could] weigh the statute as it is written." This argument, and the judge's ruling, took place in the jury's presence.
The jury found Snider guilty of first-degree failure to stop. He now appeals.
Snider's argument on appeal
Snider argues that Alaska's reckless driving statute does not apply to acts of driving that only endanger the driver or the driver's vehicle. Snider further argues that some jurors might have found that Snider's driving endangered nobody but himself, and that his conviction for first-degree eluding must therefore be reversed.
In support of this argument, Snider notes that Alaska's reckless driving statute proscribes driving "in a manner that creates a substantial and unjustifiable risk of harm to a person or to property." Snider further points out that Alaska's negligent driving statute explicitly applies to risks of harm to the driver or to the driver's own property. In contrast, Alaska's reckless driving statute does not explicitly state that the endangered person or the property may be the driver or the driver's car. Snider argues that the differing language of the two statutes implies that the legislature intended the reckless driving statute to have a narrower scope than the negligent driving statute.
AS 28.35.400(a).
AS 28.35.410(a).
The State in turn argues that, if the legislature had intended to limit the offense of reckless driving so that it excluded a risk of harm to the driver and the driver's car, the legislature would have said so explicitly. The State further argues that the legislature's intent behind the reckless driving statute cannot be inferred from the wording of the negligent driving statute, because the negligent driving statute requires a showing that some person was actually endangered.
We conclude that we need not resolve this issue of statutory interpretation, given the facts of Snider's case.
At trial, the State presented evidence that Snider drove at speeds of up to eighty miles per hour (fifty miles per hour over the speed limit) along a winding, hilly two-lane road with limited visibility, at times crossing the center line. Reasonable jurors could find that this driving posed a substantial and unjustifiable risk of harm, not only to Snider, but also to the pursuing officer and to the public at large.
See Newsom v. State, 199 P.3d 1181, 1187 (Alaska App. 2009) (holding that a driver's act of fleeing an officer by cutting in front of a car in an adjoining lane sufficed to support an indictment for felony eluding). --------
We perceive no reasonable possibility that one or more jurors returned a guilty verdict based solely on the risk of harm that Snider created for himself or his vehicle, without also finding that Snider's driving posed risks of harm to the pursuing officer and to other people.
We thus conclude that even if the judge had instructed the jury to disregard any risk to Snider or to his own vehicle when it considered whether Snider drove recklessly, the jury would have returned the same verdict. Accordingly, any error the judge may have committed regarding the scope of the reckless driving statute was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Conclusion
The judgment of the superior court is AFFIRMED.