State v. Kreiger

138 N.W.2d 597, 1965 N.D. LEXIS 109
CourtNorth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 29, 1965
Docket326
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 138 N.W.2d 597 (State v. Kreiger) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering North Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Kreiger, 138 N.W.2d 597, 1965 N.D. LEXIS 109 (N.D. 1965).

Opinion

STRUTZ, Judge.

The defendant-appellant was convicted in the County Court of Increased Jurisdiction of Grand Forks County of the crime of aggravated reckless driving. The case was tried to the court without a jury, a jury having been waived. The case comes before us on appeal from the judgment of conviction. Specifications of error relate to the sufficiency of the evidence and, further, point out that the complaint under which the defendant was charged did not state facts with sufficient clarity and particularity to apprise the defendant of the offense charged.

The challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence is based on two grounds. In the first place, the court found the defendant guilty of reckless driving under Section 39-08-03, Subsection 2, North Dakota Century Code. It further found that such reckless driving caused and inflicted injury upon another, and that the defendant therefore was guilty of the crime with which he was charged, that of aggravated reckless driving, under the provisions of the statute. The defendant, on the other hand, contends that, since the evidence did not warrant a finding that he was guilty of reckless driving under both Subsections 1 and 2 of Section 39-08-03, he could not be convicted of aggravated reckless driving.

The second challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence is that the evidence is insufficient to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant was, in fact, guilty of aggravated reckless driving.

The facts, as shown by the record, disclose that, on the evening of October 30, 1964, the defendant was driving a motor vehicle in the city of Larimore, North Dakota. With him, as passengers, were Rebecca Hill, *599 Grace Johnson, and Rhetta Wixo. The defendant was observed by a police officer of the city of Larimore, driving from a location in that city designated as the Dairy Queen. As the defendant left the Dairy Queen, according to the police officer, his vehicle spun gravel and fishtailed back and forth as it proceeded down the street, and that the defendant left the city at a high rate of speed. The officer, on observing these movements of the defendant’s vehicle, turned on the red warning light on the roof of his patrol car and followed the defendant’s car as it traveled north. As the patrolman reached the northern limits of the city of Larimore, his speedometer showed that he was traveling at a speed of approximately seventy-five miles an hour, and, according to his testimony, the defendant’s car was pulling away from him. A short time later, as the chase continued, the police officer saw the defendant’s vehicle run up the other side of a hill ahead of him and he then saw the headlights and the tail-lights of the defendant’s car in the air, after which the lights disappeared. When the officer came to the point in the highway where he had last seen the lights of the defendant’s automobile, he found the defendant and two girls wandering around. He was told that another girl was missing. On investigation, she was found lying under the defendant’s car. This girl suffered a broken back, a cracked rib socket, broken ribs, and a brain hemorrhage. The record further discloses that the defendant, in attempting to control his vehicle, applied the brakes and that his vehicle had traveled a distance of 533 feet from the point of the first skidmarks to the point where the vehicle came to rest.

On these facts, the court found the defendant guilty of aggravated reckless driving, and this appeal is from the judgment of conviction.

In determining whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain the conviction of the defendant for aggravated reckless driving, we must consider the provisions of the aggravated-reckless-driving statute. Section 39-08-03 of the North Dakota Century Code provides as follows:

“Any person shall be guilty of reckless driving if he drives a vehicle upon a highway:
“1. Carelessly and heedlessly in willful or wanton disregard of the rights or safety of others; or
“2. Without due caution and circumspection and at a speed or in a manner so as to endanger or be likely to endanger any person or the property of another.”

The section then goes on to provide:

“Any person violating the provisions of this section, who by reason of reckless driving as herein defined, causes and inflects injury upon the person of another, shall be guilty of aggravated reckless driving, * *

It is the contention of the defendant that the statute defining aggravated reckless driving requires that “the provisions of this section” be violated; that th'is means that, before a defendant can be found guilty of aggravated reckless driving, the evidence must show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was guilty of reckless driving under both Subsections 1 and 2 of the reckless-driving statute; that, since the evidence in this case discloses that the defendant was guilty of reckless driving under Subsection 2 only, and that the court specifically found him guilty of reckless driving only under Subsection 2, the evidence is insufficient to find him guilty of aggravated reckless driving as defined by the law. Defendant further contends that if he can be found guilty, under the charges filed against him, of “aggravated reckless driving,” then, under this statute, he could be found guilty of several charges under the complaint filed and that he was not apprised of the particular charge against him with sufficient clarity and particularity to that he was fully apprised of the offense charged.

Our statute provides that a person shall be guilty of reckless driving where *600 the evidence shows that he carelessly and heedlessly, in willful and wanton disregard of the rights or safety of others, operated his vehicle on the public highway; or if he drove his vehicle upon the highway without due caution or circumspection and at a speed or in a manner so as to endanger or be likely to endanger any person. Clearly, to be guilty of ordinary reckless driving, a driver need not be proved guilty under both subsections. To prove guilt of reckless driving under Subsection 2, the evidence must show that the defendant drove his vehicle without due caution and circumspection and at a speed or in a manner so as to endanger or be likely to endanger any person or the property of another, but the evidence need not show that anyone was, in fact, injured.

In making its decision, the court found that the defendant drove his vehicle upon the highway at a speed and in a manner so as to endanger or be likely to endanger the person of another. It further found that, as a result of such reckless driving, another person was injured. So the court concluded that, since another was injured by reason of the reckless driving of the defendant, as defined in Subsection 2 of the Act, he was guilty of aggravated reckless driving.

From a careful study of the evidence, it is clear that the defendant did commit the crime of reckless driving.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
138 N.W.2d 597, 1965 N.D. LEXIS 109, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-kreiger-nd-1965.