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North Carolina v. McGill3/5/1985
Defendant first assigns error to the denial of various motions challenging the sufficiency of the evidence. He directs his attack to the issue of causation. We note first that the state produced ample evidence to support the jury's verdict on the DUI charge. State v. Scott, 71 N.C. App. 570, 322 S.E.2d 613 (1984). Defendant's challenge to the driving while license permanently revoked charge is frivolous, and he does not contest the transporting conviction. The real challenge is to the manslaughter convictions.
Once the state proved the DUI offense, it then bore the burden of establishing that the violation proximately caused the deaths:
he act of the accused need not be the immediate cause of death. He is legally accountable if the direct cause is the natural result of the criminal act. [Citations omitted.] There
may be more than one proximate cause and criminal responsibility arises when the act complained of caused or directly contributed to the death. [Citations omitted.]
State v. Mitchell, 62 N.C. App. 21, 302 S.E.2d 265 (1983) (quoting State v. Cummings, 301 N.C. 374, 271 S.E.2d 277 (1980)). In Mitchell, we rejected the defendant's contention that intervening negligence on the part of the treating physician absolved him of criminal liability: when the injury inflicted by accused is a contributing cause of death, the accused must bear criminal responsibility unless it can be shown that intervening acts of others were the sole cause of death. Id. Accordingly, the state need not, as defendant appears to contend, exclude every other possible cause of death. Language in State v. Stewardson, 32 N.C. App. 344, 232 S.E.2d 308, disc. rev. denied, 292 N.C. 643, 235 S.E.2d 64 (1977), to the effect that the violation "must" have caused the accident and death, when read in context, simply is a paraphrase of the general rule: the state must produce sufficient evidence to allow the jury to find that defendant's acts were a proximate cause of death.
More problematic is defendant's contention that the state failed to show sufficient causal connection between his intoxication and the accident. While it is undoubtedly negligent to drive while under the influence, that negligence must be causally connected to the accident by evidence of violation of some rule of the road or other faulty driving, to establish liability. Atkins v. Moye, 277 N.C. 179, 176 S.E.2d 789 (1970); Rhyne v. O'Brien, 54 N.C. App. 621, 284 S.E.2d 122 (1981); State v. Hewitt, 263 N.C. 759, 140 S.E.2d 241 (1965); State v. Lowery, 223 N.C. 598, 27 S.E.2d 638 (1943). An intoxicated driver driving at normal speed on his side of the road obviously would not ordinarily be deemed negligent for involvement in a collision with an approaching car that suddenly swerved over the center line into his or her path. Atkins v. Moye, supra. Evidence of driving while intoxicated, Page 210} standing alone, will not support an involuntary manslaughter conviction. State v. Lowery, supra.
The fact that the only other witnesses to the accident perished at the scene did not prevent the state from proving its case. Circumstantial and expert evidence may suffice. The state introduced evidence which, taken most favorably to the state, tended to show that the road was straight and clear, that the victims' car was traveling along it wi
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