Goldring v. State

SALMON, Judge. This case arises from a drag race during which two bystanders and one of the participants were killed. The surviving ⁷³⁰ participant, appellant James L. Goldring, was charged with three counts of involuntary manslaughter by motor vehicle under Md.Code (1957,1992 Repl.Vol.), Art. 27, § 388. He was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for St. Mary’s County (Kaminetz, J., presiding) on all three counts.

The court sentenced appellant to a total of sixteen and one-half years imprisonment. 1 I. Whether there was sufficient evidence to support appellant’s convictions for the deaths of the two bystanders.

II

Whether a participant in a drag race can be held criminally responsible for the death of his co-participant. FACTS According to the testimony adduced at trial, appellant and Robert K. Hall spent much of the day on April 25, 1993 drag racing their cars against various competitors at the Maryland International Raceway (MIR) in St. Mary’s County. Appellant and Hall had planned to race against each other at MIR, but it closed before they had the opportunity to do so. Consequently, appellant and Hall agreed to race on the street.

In preparation for the race, a distance of a quarter mile was marked off on Sunny Side Road, a two lane macadam country road that measures 20 feet in width and is bordered by wheat fields. A flag man was appointed, and between 50 and 75 persons gathered to watch the race. The State’s accident reconstructionist explained the tragic details of what occurred: ⁷³¹ A prearranged race was made between Mr. Goldring and Mr. Hall. They all ended up at Pincushion Road and Sunny Side Road at the speed limit sign.

That area is posted 45 miles per hour. From there a flagman gave them the go and they proceeded, Mr. Goldring in which would be the right lane and Mr. Hall in the left lane or the wrong side of the road. They proceeded on toward Route Five, at which—at one point Mr. Hall come [sic] across the lane markings and struck the side of Mr. Goldring’s vehicle. Mr. Goldring continued to proceed towards Route Five.

Mr. Hall, not having control of his vehicle, went into his critical curve, scuffing, went into the ditch on the side, hit the embankment, went airborne in a counter clockwise fashion. While he was rolling counter clockwise he had—he struck the parked Chevrolet pickup truck, the pickup truck spun clockwise and out into the road, Sunny Side Road. The [Hall] vehicle hit the dirt road, still spinning counter clockwise with a lot of force, struck the Blazer as it was coming back off the ground, with the left front bumper which caused the Blazer to flip over and come to final rest on its top. The [Hall] vehicle came to a final rest on its top and during the course of these collisions several pedestrians were struck.

Hall was killed instantaneously. Thirteen year old spectator James Young, Jr. died when the Blazer, which had been hit by Hall’s car, rolled onto Young and crushed his head. Antonio Carter, a passenger on a motorcycle that had been waved off the road prior to the start of the race, was also killed when a vehicle rolled onto him. I. Art. 27, § 388 provides that “[E]very person causing the death of another as the result of the driving, operation or control of an automobile ... in a grossly negligent manner,” shall be guilty of a misdemeanor to be known as “manslaughter by automobile ...” We recently held that any driver participating in a drag race may be convicted under Art. 27, § 388 for the death of a third party, “regardless of which ⁷³² driver actually collided with the victim or the victim’s vehicle____” Pineta v. State, 98 Md.App. 614, 625 , 634 A.2d 982 (1993).

In Pineta , the defendant and one Jaime Chicas engaged in a “drag race” on northbound Georgia Avenue, in Montgomery County. Id. at 619 , 634 A.2d 982 . During the race, the vehicle operated by Chicas struck a third vehicle as it was making a left turn from southbound Georgia Avenue into a restaurant driveway. Id.

Both occupants in the third vehicle were killed. Id. In concluding that the evidence was sufficient to support the defendant’s convictions for vehicular manslaughter, we stated that the jury could have rationally found that appellant agreed to engage in a “drag race” with Chicas at speeds of at least 70 miles per hour on Georgia Avenue and that the victims’ deaths were the direct consequence of gross negligence on the part of both appellant and Chicas. By engaging in the illegal speed contest, appellant aided and abetted the criminal conduct of Chicas and appellant’s actions were the proximate cause of the victims’ deaths.

Id. at 626 , 634 A.2d 982 . Drawing factual distinctions between Pineta and the case at hand, appellant submits that there was insufficient evidence of gross negligence in the instant case to support his convictions for the deaths of the two spectators. In his brief, appellant points out that both cars had undergone a safety check at MIR, that the race occurred on a pre-measured stretch of country road, and that there were “members of the community attending the race, who, like the racers, did not think that their participation demonstrated a wanton and reckless disregard of their own lives.” We are mindful that, in deciding the sufficiency of the evidence issue, we must review the evidence in the light most favorable to the State and determine whether any rational jury could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Pendergast v. State, 99 Md.App. 141, 148 , 636 A.2d 18 (1994) (citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 ⁷³³ U.S. 307, 319 , 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789 , 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979)).

Thus, in this case, we must determine whether there was sufficient evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt to establish that the defendant was grossly negligent, that is, that he had a wanton or reckless disregard for human life in the operation of an automobile.” State v. Kramer, 318 Md. 576, 590 , 569 A.2d 674 (1990). The evidence presented at trial shows that appellant and Hall reached speeds of over 100 miles per hour while illegally drag racing on a country road that had a posted speed limit of 45 miles per hour. The portion of the two-lane road on which the race took place had no shoulder, was bordered by ditches on both sides, and contained a curve just a few hundred feet from the start. Further testimony established that both of the racing vehicles had been altered to accommodate the goal of maximum speed.

The following testimony was offered regarding appellant’s vehicle: The floor boards were actually rusted with holes exposed through the floorboards. There was no passenger’s seat, no rear seat. The speedometer was inoperative, the cable had been disconnected. There was racing slicks on the rear, the front tires were regular tires like you would put out on a normal car, smaller, and they appeared to have some signs of dry rotting around the outside edges of them.

Most of the lighting equipment was inoperative on the vehicle. Basically it had been stripped down, made as light as it could to go as fast as it could for racing. Deputy William Cease testified that appellant’s vehicle was not registered in Maryland, Virginia, or the District of Columbia, and that, due to its condition, could not be legally registered to be driven on public roadways. The testimony concerning the significant safety precautions taken during the drag races held at MIR served to highlight further the extreme danger involved in drag racing on a public road.

Royce Miller, the racing promoter at MIR, testified that the track surface at MIR is coated with “adhesive enhancing sprays” that help to prevent the cars from spinning and ⁷³⁴ losing control. In addition, the spectators at MIR sit behind a spectator fence that “is protected by a concrete barrier down both sides of the racetrack.” We hold that there was ample evidence to support a rational finding that appellant’s decision to compete in a drag race on Sunny Side Road constituted grossly negligent conduct. In addition, we find no merit to appellant’s argument that there was insufficient evidence to show that appellant caused or “aided and abetted” the involuntary manslaughter of the two spectators. Although we acknowledge that it was Hall’s vehicle that went out of control, we have emphasized that it was appellant’s conduct in competing in the race that constituted gross negligence.

As in Pineta , it is clear that the jury could have rationally concluded that the deaths of the spectators were caused by the joint gross negligence of Hall and appellant in agreeing to engage in the race.

II

The question of whether a participant in a drag race can be held criminally liable under Art. 27, § 388 for the death of his co-participant 2 is one of first impression in Maryland. Appellant, citing cases from other jurisdictions, that hold that the requisite causation element is lacking, submits that our holding in Pineta should not be extended to the situation in which a co-participant is killed. We recognize that, in similar factual situations, courts in other jurisdictions have held that the decedent participant’s own grossly negligent conduct breaches the line of causation ⁷³⁵ necessary to hold the surviving participant criminally liable. In Commonwealth v. Root, 403 Pa. 571 , 170 A.2d 310 (1961), the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that “the defendant’s conduct was not a sufficiently direct cause of the competing driver’s death to make him criminally responsible therefor.” Id., 170 A.2d at 314 .

The Court noted that it was the reckless conduct of the deceased driver in suddenly swerving into oncoming traffic that brought about the deceased’s head-on collision with the other vehicle. Id. Emphasizing that it would not apply tort concepts of proximate cause to criminal homicide cases, the Pennsylvania Court concluded that the link between the defendant driver’s conduct and his competitor’s death was too tenuous to charge the surviving participant with involuntary manslaughter: To persist in applying the tort liability concept of proximate cause to prosecutions for criminal homicide after the marked expansion of civil liability of defendants in tort actions for negligence would be to extend possible criminal liability to persons chargeable with unlawful or reckless conduct in circumstances not generally considered to present the likelihood of resultant death. Id., 170 A.2d at 311 .

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