 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
STATE v. ORTIZ1/5/1993
eral Statutes 53a-57. We, therefore, conclude that the trial court properly denied the defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal notwithstanding the verdict.
II
The defendant next challenges the trial court's instruction on the concept of proximate cause. The trial court instructed the jury on causation: "Proximate cause is defined in criminal law as not necessarily the last act that caused or act in point of time nearest to death; the concept of proximate cause incorporates the notion that an accused may be charged with a criminal offense even though his acts were not the immediate cause of death. An act or omission to act is a proximate cause when it substantially and materially contributes, in a natural and a continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient, intervening cause, to the resulting deaths. It is the cause without which the death would not have occurred and the predominating cause, and a substantial factor, from which death follows as a natural, direct and immediate consequence. In this case, obviously both sides have a different view as to what the cause of the death was and that is as a trier
of fact what you determine." The defendant concedes, as he must, that this is a proper definition of the concept of proximate cause. See State v. Spates, supra, 233-34; State v. Kwaak, supra, 145-46. The defendant argues, however, that the instruction was incomplete, and therefore failed to instruct the jury properly, because it did not include the language of his request to charge on the issue of causation. We disagree.
"While a request to charge that is relevant to the issue of the case and is an accurate statement of the law must be given, the trial court is not required to charge in the identical language requested if its charge is accurate, adequate and, in substance, properly includes material portions of the defendant's request. . . . Thus, the trial court properly discharges its duty when it gives instructions to the jury in a manner calculated to give them a clear understanding of the issues presented for their consideration, under the
offenses charged and upon the evidence, and when its instructions are suited to their guidance in the determination of those issues." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Bunker, 27 Conn. App. 322, 328, 606 A.2d 30 (1992). Under this standard of review, we conclude that the trial court properly instructed the jury.
The defendant's request to charge is not a correct statement of the law of causation. While it is correct that proof beyond a reasonable doubt of each element of an offense must exclude reasonable hypotheses of innocence; see, e.g., State v. Hammond, 221 Conn. 264, 288, 604 A.2d 793 (1992); it does not follow that proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant caused the victims' deaths must exclude any reasonable possibility that the victims' conduct was also a cause of the deaths. Rather, the state fails in its proof that an accused's criminally negligent conduct caused the death of another when the jury finds "either that the defendant's [criminal negligence] was not the actual `but for' cause of the victim's death or that there was an `independent and efficient cause'; State v. Alterio, supra; or an intervening and efficient cause. State v. Spates, supra." State v. Kwaak, supra, 146. Contrary to the defendant's argument, it is well settled that "if [a person] commits a felonious act and death follows, it does not alter its nature or diminish its criminality to prove that other causes co-operated to produce that result." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 145.
The defendant argues, nonetheless, that in State v. Kwaak, supra,
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Connecticut DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|