 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
State v. Perez-Cervantes8/24/2000
caused by the defendant. The defendant argued that the evidence was insufficient to prove that his act of committing arson was the proximate cause of the firefighter's death because the firefighter negligently allowed his breathing apparatus to run out of oxygen. In holding that the arson fire was the proximate cause of the firefighter's death, we held that the fire fighter's alleged negligence in using his breathing apparatus was not the sole cause of his death. Since his failure to use the apparatus would not have killed him had the defendant not set the arson fire, the defendant's conduct in setting the fire was a proximate cause of {the fire fighter's} death. Leech, 114 Wn.2d at 705.
Under the law established in the aforementioned cases and the jury instruction given in this case, Perez-Cervantes' counsel would only have been entitled to argue that there was an alternative cause of death if the evidence admitted at trial supported a theory that some act of the victim or another superseded the stabbing as the cause of Thomas' death.
Specifically, there would have to be evidence that Thomas' drug use or failure to seek medical attention caused a fatal injury independent of the stabbing, or that these acts constituted a subsequent, proximate cause that Perez-Cervantes could not have reasonably anticipated. There was no such evidence. Indeed, as we have noted, the only evidence concerning the cause of Thomas' death was the testimony of the Pierce County medical examiner, Dr. Lacsina. This evidence, even when viewed in the light most favorable to the defendant, as it must be, only supports one possible inference--that Thomas died as a result of the stab wounds inflicted by Perez-Cervantes. Tellingly, Dr. Lacsina distinguished his understanding of 'contributing factors' from the medical cause of death as follows:
{T}he cause of death is the main process that has brought about the death of a person. It is the main thing. The main finding.
The contributing factor is sort of a, maybe if you want to call it a minor event, that would have contributed to the cause of death or added to it or complicated it. VRP vol. II at 24.
In other words, Dr. Lacsina distinguished the "minor event" of Thomas' post-stabbing drug use from the actual cause of his death, the stabbing. The dissent's assertion that we 'largely rest{}' our holding on a legal conclusion by Dr. Lacsina is mistaken. Dissent at 4. We, of course, recognize that this testimony explicitly concerns only medical causation. It essentially forecloses any debate about legal cause, however, because neither party presented evidence of any other medical cause of death. Simply put, Dr. Lacsina provided the only evidence of cause of death. It is his testimony, in sum, that described the physical process by which Thomas died--the blood from his intercostal arterial injury effectively crushing his lung.
Had there been evidence that Thomas' drug use had some other effect on him, such as causing a 'heart attack or jolt,' and that this caused his death independently of the stab wounds, counsel would have been entitled to make the argument he wished to make. There was, though, no such evidence. Dr. Lacsina did not testify that cocaine use alone could possibly cause the internal bleeding, or that Thomas died as the result of anything other than that bleeding. In fact, as we have noted, his testimony was quite to the contrary. In sum, Perez-Cervantes can point to no evidence in the record which gives rise to an inference that the sole cause of Thomas' death was his ingestion of drugs or failure to seek medical attention.
Even if there had been evidence that Thomas' drug use or his failure to se
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Washington DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|