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Jeffries v. State5/14/2004
of an oncoming car. The other driver, who was traveling on DeBarr Road at a lawful speed of approximately 45 miles per hour, "had [just] enough warning to take [his] foot off the gas" before he collided with the passenger side of Jeffries's vehicle. When the paramedics arrived a few minutes later, Beulah Dean was bleeding from her head and was completely unresponsive. She was taken to the hospital, where she died a short time later.
When the police contacted Jeffries at the scene, he staggered when he walked, he leaned on his car for balance, and he smelled of alcoholic beverages. Jeffries's blood alcohol level tested at .27 percent.
Jeffries had six prior convictions for driving while intoxicated, and his driver's license had been revoked for the ten years preceding this incident. (Jeffries was not eligible to obtain a driver's license until 2018.) Jeffries was on probation, and one of his conditions of probation was to refrain from drinking alcoholic beverages. Four times previously, Jeffries had refused to participate in court-ordered alcohol treatment programs.
Jeffries was initially charged with manslaughter for causing Dean's death, but the State later re-indicted Jeffries for second-degree murder. Following a jury trial, Jeffries was convicted of this charge (as well as driving while intoxicated and driving while his license was suspended or revoked).
The distinction between "recklessness" and "extreme indifference to the value of human life"
Under AS 11.41.120(a)(1), the crime of manslaughter consists of causing the death of another human being while acting at least recklessly with respect to this result. The term "recklessly" is defined in AS 11.81.900(a)(3):
[A] person acts "recklessly" with respect to a result ... when the person is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result *188 will occur ...; the risk must be of such a nature and degree that disregard of it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation; a person who is unaware of a risk of which the person would have been aware had that person not been intoxicated acts recklessly with respect to that risk[.]
In contrast, the crime of second-degree murder defined in AS 11.41.110(a)(2) requires proof that the defendant "knowingly engage[d] in conduct that result [ed] in the death of another person under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life".
Alaska's criminal code does not contain an express definition of "extreme indifference to the value of human life". However, this Court defined this phrase in Neitzel v. State, 655 P.2d 325 (Alaska App.1982). We concluded that "extreme indifference to the value of human life" was intended to codify the common-law concept of "reckless murder". [FN1]
FN1. Neitzel, 655 P.2d at 327.
As we explained in Neitzel, murder was defined at common law as a homicide committed with "malice". [FN2] Generally speaking, "malice" referred to any intentional homicide that was not justified, excused, or mitigated. [FN3] However,
FN2. Id.
FN3. Id.
[the][c]ommon-law courts permitted a jury to find malice [even] in the absence of a specific intent to kill [when the defendant's] act was done with such heedless disregard of a harmful result, foreseen as a likely possibility, that it differ[ed] little in the scale of moral blameworthiness from an actual intent to [kill].... Typical examples of this kind of murder are: shooting ... into a home, room, train, or automobile in which others are known to be or might be.
Neitzel, 655 P.2d at 327. [FN4]
FN4. Quoting Rollin M. Perkins, Criminal Law (2nd edition 1969), § 1, pp. 36 & 768.
The Model Penal Code contains
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