Opinion
A17-0710
11-12-2019
State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Marie Jessica Hall, Appellant.
Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Kelly O'Neill Moller, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent) Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn . Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018). Affirmed
Cleary, Chief Judge Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-16-3437 Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Kelly O'Neill Moller, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent) Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant) Considered and decided by Cleary, Chief Judge; Hooten, Judge; and Peterson, Judge.
Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
CLEARY, Chief Judge
On remand from the supreme court, appellant Marie Jessica Hall argues that her conviction for third-degree murder must be reversed because evidence that her conduct evinced a depraved mind was insufficient where she was acting in a state of psychosis and intended to kill herself. Because Hall was aware that her reckless driving conduct endangered others, despite her suicidal intent, we affirm.
FACTS
On January 28, 2016, appellant Marie Jessica Hall crashed the SUV she was driving into a maintenance truck, killing one occupant and injuring the other. State v. Hall, 931 N.W.2d 737, 738 (Minn. 2019). She was charged with third-degree murder, criminal vehicular homicide, and criminal vehicular operation. Id. She asserted a mental-illness defense and waived her right to a jury trial. Id. After a bifurcated court trial on the guilt and mental-illness phases, the district court found that Hall failed to establish a mental-illness defense (concluding that it was "a close call") and found Hall guilty of all three charges. Id. at 739. The district court considered Hall's mental illness as a mitigating factor and sentenced her to 100 months' imprisonment, a downward-durational departure.
Hall filed a direct appeal in which she argued that there was insufficient evidence to support her conviction for third-degree murder because: (1) she intended to kill herself, and therefore the state did not prove that she acted without intent to effect the death of any person; and (2) the state did not prove that her conduct evinced a depraved mind at the time of the collision. Id. Hall also argued that the district court erred by determining that she failed to establish that she was not guilty based on mental illness. Id. We reversed Hall's conviction for third-degree murder, concluding that the state was required to prove as an element of the offense that Hall acted without intent to kill any person; that "any person" included the defendant; and that the state did not prove that element because the district court specifically found that Hall had intended to kill herself. State v. Hall, 915 N.W.2d 528, 536-37 (Minn. App. 2018), rev'd, 931 N.W.2d 737 (Minn. 2019). We affirmed Hall's remaining convictions, concluding that she did not establish the defense of mental illness. Id. at 539. Because we reversed Hall's third-degree murder conviction, we did not consider Hall's alternative sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge involving whether her conduct evinced a depraved mind. Hall, 931 N.W.2d at 739.
Judge Hooten dissented. Hall, 915 N.W.2d at 539-40 (concurring that appellant failed to establish the mental illness defense, but disagreeing with the holding that "without intent to effect the death of any person" is an element of third-degree murder).
The supreme court granted the state's petition for review but did not grant Hall's conditional petition for cross-review. Id. The supreme court reversed, concluding that the state is not required to prove that the defendant lacked the "intent to effect the death of any person" as an element of third-degree murder, and remanded the matter to this court with instructions to "address Hall's alternative argument that her conduct did not evince a depraved mind." Id. at 743-44 (quotation omitted). We reinstated the appeal, and the parties submitted supplemental briefs.
DECISION
Hall argues that her conviction for third-degree murder must be reversed because the evidence is insufficient to establish that her conduct at the time of the collision evinced a depraved mind. "When evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence, appellate courts carefully examine the record to determine whether the facts and the legitimate inferences drawn from them would permit the jury to reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the offenses of which [she] was convicted." State v. Griffin, 887 N.W.2d 257, 263 (Minn. 2016) (quotation omitted). Hall's sufficiency-of-the-evidence argument involves the question of whether her conduct meets the definition of a depraved mind, which is a question involving statutory interpretation that this court reviews de novo. See State v. Hayes, 826 N.W.2d 799, 803 (Minn. 2013). Appellate courts review bench trials under the same standard of review as jury trials. State v. Palmer, 803 N.W.2d 727, 733 (Minn. 2011).
Third-degree murder is defined as follows:
Whoever, without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life, is guilty of murder in the third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 25 years.Minn. Stat. § 609.195(a) (2014). The elements of third-degree murder require an act that (1) causes the death of another, (2) is eminently dangerous to others, and (3) evinces a depraved mind without regard for human life. Hall, 931 N.W.2d at 740-41 (indicating that the decision in State v. Mytych, 194 N.W.2d 276, 282 (Minn. 1972), reaffirmed the elements of third-degree murder). The mens rea required for third-degree depraved-mind murder is "equivalent to a reckless standard." State v. Barnes, 713 N.W.2d 325, 332 (Minn. 2006). Third-degree murder applies to "acts perpetrated with a full consciousness that they were calculated to put the lives of others in jeopardy." State v. Weltz, 193 N.W. 42, 43 (Minn. 1923). The nature of the act and circumstances surrounding it provide evidence of a depraved mind. Id. An act that "inevitably endangers human life" evinces a depraved mind. Id.
We understand this to mean "notably, conspicuously," or even "very." Bryan A. Garner, Garner's Modern English Usage 329 (4th ed. 2016).
Hall does not argue that her conduct was not reckless, only that it did not evince a depraved mind because it was not committed without regard to any particular person or persons where she intended to kill herself. Hall relies on State v. Wahlberg to support her argument that third-degree murder "was intended to cover cases where the reckless or wanton acts of the accused were committed without special regard to their effect on any particular person or persons" and without "special design" upon the person "with whose murder the accused is charged." 296 N.W.2d 408, 417 (Minn. 1980). But the issue the supreme court considered in Wahlberg was whether the district court erred by refusing to instruct the jury on the lesser-included offense of third-degree murder in a first-degree murder trial, not whether the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction for third-degree murder. Id. The second case Hall relies on, State v. Hanson, is also inapposite because the issue the supreme court considered was whether the district court should have granted Hanson's request for a third-degree murder instruction as a lesser-included offense of first- and second-degree murder. 176 N.W.2d 607, 614 (Minn. 1970). The supreme court concluded that Hanson was not entitled to an instruction on third-degree murder because his acts were directed at his wife and third-degree murder "is committed only in situations where the reckless, mischievous, or wanton acts of the accused were committed without special regard to their effect on any particular person or persons, but were committed with a reckless disregard of whether they injured one person or another." Id. at 615 (quotation omitted).
Unlike the defendants in Wahlberg and Hanson, Hall is challenging the sufficiency of the evidence for her conviction of third-degree murder. Different standards of review apply to jury-instruction and sufficiency-of-the-evidence issues. Compare State v. Dahlin, 695 N.W.2d 588, 597 (Minn. 2005) (stating standard of review for denial of request for lesser-included instruction is abuse of discretion) with Griffin, 887 N.W.2d at 263 (stating the standard of review for sufficiency of the evidence requires this court to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and assume that the fact-finder disbelieved any evidence that conflicted with the verdict). These jury-instruction cases do not persuade us that Hall is not guilty of third-degree murder because her conduct was directed at killing herself.
We observe that the supreme court has affirmed a third-degree murder conviction where the defendant directed her actions at a particular person or persons. Mytych, 194 N.W.2d at 282. Although the supreme court subsequently acknowledged that this is not a typical application of third-degree murder, State v. Leinweber, 228 N.W.2d 120, 123 n.3 (Minn. 1975), we nevertheless find the supreme court's analysis in Mytych persuasive. Mytych was indicted for first-degree murder and aggravated assault for shooting and injuring her former lover and shooting and killing his new wife; the district court rejected her mental-illness defense and found her guilty of third-degree murder and aggravated assault. Id. at 278-79. The supreme court affirmed the third-degree murder conviction, stating that "[a] mind which has become inflamed by emotions, disappointments, and hurt to such degree that it ceases to care for human life and safety is a depraved mind." Id. at 283 (concluding that, although Mytych "may have been emotionally disturbed," Mytych's acts evinced a depraved mind where she knew enough to board a plane under a fictitious name, to fly to St. Paul with a gun, and to deliberately attempt to avoid detection). Id.
We conclude that Hall's conduct evinced the depraved mind required for third-degree murder, despite evidence that her conduct was designed to kill herself, if her conduct demonstrated that she was aware of the risk of harm her reckless driving conduct caused to the safety of others, and she consciously disregarded that risk.
Because the issue of whether Hall's conduct evinced a depraved mind is based on an inference, the circumstantial evidence standard applies. See State v. Montermini, 819 N.W.2d 447, 460-61 (Minn. App. 2012) (holding circumstances proved established the inference that Montermini acted with a depraved mind where he drove at high speeds, the wrong way, distractedly, and with an alcohol concentration nearly twice the legal limit, and he ignored his passengers' pleas to slow down and let them out of the car). The first step is to determine the circumstances proved, giving deference to the fact-finder. State v. Silvernail, 831 N.W.2d 594, 598-99 (Minn. 2013). The circumstances proved at trial were: (1) Hall was traveling at 93.8 miles per hour in a 35 mile-per-hour zone; (2) she was passing cars, "running red lights," and "trying to crash" to end it all; (3) she admitted she knew her conduct put others at risk of death, but she engaged in the conduct anyway; (4) she drank four shots of vodka before the crash and her alcohol concentration was 0.053; (5) the accelerator pedal was at 100% at the time of the crash, and she made no effort to brake before striking the maintenance vehicle; (6) the crash killed one occupant and injured the other; (7) although she did not remember striking the vehicle, she was "sure" she did because she knew there was traffic and she was going really fast, and after the collision she asked if anyone was hurt; (8) "there is no evidence" that she targeted the maintenance vehicle or "intended to kill anyone in particular"; and (9) her conduct occurred on January 28, 2016, in Hennepin County.
Although Hall made admissions that provide direct evidence of her depraved mind because they show she was aware of the risk her driving conduct caused to others, we are not persuaded that her admissions are sufficient on their own to support the depraved-mind element.
The second step of the analysis is to determine whether these circumstances are consistent with guilt and inconsistent with any other rational or reasonable hypothesis. Id. at 599. This court independently examines the reasonableness of all inferences that might be drawn from the circumstances proved, and gives no deference to the fact-finder's choice between reasonable inferences. Id. The state argues that Hall's conduct of drinking vodka shots, traveling at speeds of 100 miles per hour, and running red lights on a busy road before crashing into the maintenance truck evinces a depraved mind because, regardless of her intent to kill herself, her conduct demonstrated that she had ceased to care for the lives of others. This is a reasonable inference.
Hall urges us to consider as an alternative reasonable inference that she was in a state of psychosis at the time of the collision, which does not evince a depraved mind but a mind clouded by mental illness. The district court considered and rejected Hall's mental-illness defense and found that she knew others were at risk by her conduct. To consider Hall's reasonable inference, we would have to ignore precedent that prohibits courts from considering the defendant's mental capacity in the guilt phase of a trial. See State v. Provost, 490 N.W.2d 93, 104 (Minn. 1992); see also State v. Brink, 500 N.W.2d 799, 806-07 (Minn. App. 1993) (affirming district court's order allowing expert psychiatric testimony on Brink's suicidal intent only in the second phase of bifurcated trial to determine whether he knew the nature of his acts at the time he shot at police).
The only reasonable inference from the circumstances proved is that Hall's reckless driving conduct—speeding through traffic with a purpose of crashing—evinced a depraved mind, despite her suicidal intent. Hall's conduct and statements indicate that she was aware that her conduct endangered the lives of others, if only tangentially, but she engaged in it anyway. There is sufficient evidence to support Hall's conviction for third-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
Affirmed.