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State v. Schipman4/25/2000
easonable doubt that, but for Schipman leaving the scene of the horse accident and failing to take any action to warn of the risk he had created, Dorvall would not have died. Viewing the evidence of record in the light most favorable to the prosecution, I would conclude there was sufficient evidence for a jury to find causation in this case. I simply cannot agree with the Court's implicit determination that the fatal accident was unavoidable as a matter of law once Schipman hit the horse.
In closing, it is appropriate to observe that this was not a particularly strong case for the prosecution. Had the case against Schipman been either stronger or weaker, a plea agreement might have been reached. That did not occur, however, and the case proceeded to a jury. In my view, this is the kind of close case in which a decision by the jury was entirely appropriate. While the jury might well have acquitted Schipman of negligent homicide on the evidence before it, and while some might think that was a more appropriate outcome, I submit the jury was well within its province in convicting Schipman. In my view, it is unwise for this Court to start down the road of deciding close factual questions in criminal cases as a matter of law, especially when it accomplishes such a resolution by merely accepting the defendant's version of the facts and arguments. I dissent.
KARLA M. GRAY
Chief Justice J. A. Turnage joins in the foregoing and following dissenting opinions of Justice Gray and Justice Leaphart.
J. A. TURNAGE
Justice W. William Leaphart, dissenting.
I join in Justice Gray's dissenting opinion and note with curiosity that the Court twice mentions that, after hitting a dark horse on a very dark night, Schipman looked back in his rear view mirror and when he did not see the dark horse on the dark road, assumed it was in the ditch. The Court concludes that Schipman left the scene "under a mistaken belief that the horse was dead and in the ditch alongside the highway." Given that no one (even without the benefit of four beers) would be able to see a dark horse on a dark night in a rear view mirror any more than they could look in a rear view mirror and see a white horse lying on a snow-packed highway in a blizzard, I fail to see how this meaningless glance in the mirror justified Schipman's "mistaken belief" that the horse was not on the highway.
W. WILLIAM LEAPHART
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