Mizell v. State

350 So.3d 97

Layton Todd MIZELL, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 1D20-3627

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

September 21, 2022

Rehearing Denied November 10, 2022

Rick A. Sichta and Susanne K. Sichta of The Sichta Firm, LLC, Jacksonville, for Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Daren L. Shippy, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

B.L. Thomas, J.

Layton Todd Mizell appeals his conviction for DUI manslaughter. He asserts that the trial court reversibly erred by excluding evidence of the deceased's intoxication, which improperly deprived him of his defense that the deceased's impairment was the sole cause of the fatal collision.

Before trial, the State filed a motion in limine seeking to exclude evidence that the victim's blood contained alcohol and drugs, and that her vehicle contained alcohol bottles, hydrocodone containers, and other items indicative of impaired driving. The victim's blood-alcohol content was 0.17, twice the legal limit for which a presumption of impairment applies under section 316.1934(2)(c), Florida Statutes (2018).¹ The victim also had active ingredients of marijuana and opioid analgesics in her body at the time of the accident.

The State argued that this evidence was barred under section 90.404, Florida Statutes (2018), as an impermissible use of character evidence, and under section 90.403, Florida Statutes (2018), as more prejudicial than probative. In response, the defense argued that this evidence was highly probative to show causation, and thus its probative value outweighed its prejudicial effect. The trial court granted the State's motion, relying on Edwards v. State , 39 So. 3d 447 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010), reasoning that without competent evidence of the victim's contribution to the accident, evidence of her possible impairment was not probative of any material issue.

At trial, the State presented two witnesses who saw the accident. The accident occurred at night on Lem Turner Road in Nassau County. Appellant was driving northbound. The victim was traveling southbound. The road is a two-lane road, and the speed limit is 45 miles per hour.

The State's first witness was driving behind Appellant for eight to ten minutes. The witness described Appellant's driving pattern as erratic—Appellant's vehicle failed to maintain its lane and would periodically slow down and speed up. He also observed Appellant move into the southbound lane three or four times. The witness testified he attempted to call 911 to report Appellant's dangerous and erratic driving but lacked cell-phone coverage.

This witness then saw Appellant cross into the southbound lane where Appellant's vehicle hit the deceased's vehicle head on. The witness observed the deceased's vehicle take evasive action to the right to avoid Appellant's vehicle. However, the witness testified that he only observed about three seconds before the crash.

The second witness was driving in front of Appellant. He testified that for about eight and a half miles, Appellant repeatedly sped up to get close to the rear of the witness's vehicle. Appellant drove so close to the witness's car that the witness could not see Appellant's headlights. The second witness watched Appellant through his rear-view mirrors and never saw Appellant move into the southbound lane until the accident occurred.

Seconds before the accident, the second witness saw a vehicle coming toward him in the southbound lane. As the vehicle in the southbound lane passed, the second witness looked in his side-view mirror to see how close Appellant was to the rear of his vehicle. As Appellant approached the witness's vehicle, Appellant drove halfway into the southbound lane where he hit the deceased's vehicle head on.

The collision killed the victim immediately. Appellant suffered serious injuries, including major trauma to one leg after it was pinned under the steering wheel and crushed by the dashboard.

When emergency personnel removed Appellant from his car, one of the witnesses identified the odor of alcohol on Appellant's breath and both observed beer cans in his car. The EMT witnesses observed an open alcoholic beverage in the driver's side door, and multiple alcoholic beverage cans and bottles scattered throughout and around the vehicle. Appellant admitted to the EMT witness that he had been drinking. Throughout the encounter, Appellant was alert and oriented based on the assessment tools used to review his condition, but he did not know where he was.

On the Glascow Coma Scale, which is used to assess a person's mental status, Appellant scored a perfect fifteen. But multiple witnesses testified that Appellant exhibited signs of impairment that night. Sergeant Wettstein, who responded to the accident, testified that he observed a strong odor of alcohol on Appellant's breath and inside Appellant's vehicle. He also testified that Appellant was dazed, and his eyes were watery, glassy, and bloodshot.² He noticed that Appellant's speech was mumbled, slow, and slurred. Corporal Tolman spoke with Appellant at the hospital. He observed an odor of alcohol on Appellant's breath and a lethargic demeanor. Appellant's blood sample, taken approximately two hours after the accident, showed a blood-alcohol content of 0.116 and 0.115.

Sergeant Bennett with Florida Highway Patrol responded to the accident around midnight, and the vehicles had not been moved. The victim was still in the driver's seat of her vehicle, but Appellant was no longer on scene. Sergeant Bennett examined the scene, took photographs, and prepared a field-sketch diagram. One of the photographs of the inside of Appellant's vehicle depicted beer bottles. Another photograph showed beer bottles and cans inside and outside the vehicle. Some beer cans were open, and some had ruptured.

Based on the evidence at the scene, including vehicle parts, debris, and gouge marks, Sergeant Bennett determined that the accident was an offset, head-on collision that occurred in the southbound lane, the lane in which the deceased was traveling.

Appellant testified that at the time of the accident, he had a cooler with beer in his car from a previous hunting trip. He had both empty and full beer cans in the cooler. He asserted that on the night of the accident, he drank three cans of beer and a sip of a fourth between 9:40 p.m. and 10:20 p.m. After drinking, he did not feel impaired and began driving home around 10:20 p.m. When Appellant turned onto the road where the accident occurred, he immediately noticed that the vehicle behind him had its bright lights on. These lights distracted him, and he tried to get away from the lights by passing the vehicles in front of him.

Appellant testified that before the accident, he again sped up to try to pass the car in front of him. He saw a car from the other lane move into his lane. Appellant jerked to the left, into the opposite lane , to avoid the car. At the same time Appellant jerked to the left, the oncoming car also moved back into its lane. As a result, the cars collided.

Appellant stated that he told the paramedics, his hospital nurse, and two state troopers that he drank alcohol before the accident. Appellant testified that he did not feel affected by the alcohol he had consumed that night.

A defense expert witness in forensic medicine testified that Appellant's blood-alcohol content at the time of the accident was approximately 0.05, for which no statutory presumption of impairment is required.

Corporal Mueller testified in rebuttal that he obtained the event data recorder ("EDR") from the deceased's vehicle.³ According to the EDR, the deceased was traveling 52.8 miles per hour and was using cruise control. There was nothing unusual about the deceased's movements prior to 0.15 seconds before the crash. In the final 0.15 seconds before impact, the deceased took evasive action by steering to the right, away from Appellant's travel lane, and applying the brakes.

After Appellant testified, the defense requested to reopen the evidentiary and causation issue regarding the deceased's intoxication at the time of the accident. Both parties presented extensive argument. The trial court determined that the material issue was whether Appellant was in the deceased's lane. As a result, the trial court held, "[i]n this case, I don't think the intoxication of the victim tends to prove who was in whose lane, and so I will sustain the objection."

The jury found Appellant guilty of DUI manslaughter, as charged. Appellant moved for a new trial, arguing in part that the trial court erred by excluding evidence of the deceased's intoxication. The trial court once again upheld its previous ruling, stating that the deceased's intoxication and use of drugs at the time of the accident had no probative value on causation.

We review a trial court's evidentiary ruling for abuse of discretion. Johnson v. State , 969 So. 2d 938, 949 (Fla. 2007). All relevant evidence is admissible, and relevant evidence is that which tends to prove or disprove a material fact. §§ 90.401-.402, Fla. Stat. (2018).

The third element of DUI manslaughter requires that a defendant "cause or contribute to causing" the death of a victim while operating a vehicle while impaired. § 316.193(3)(c)3., Fla. Stat. (2018) (emphasis added). For a decedent's conduct to constitute a defense to DUI manslaughter, the conduct must be viewed as the sole proximate cause of an accident. Miller v. State , 250 So. 3d 144, 145 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018).

Florida's DUI manslaughter statute imposes an expansive responsibility on drivers who consume alcohol and are involved in an accident that causes serious injury or death. The Florida Supreme Court stated that the statute requires only that the operation of a vehicle cause an accident, and "any deviation or lack of care on the part of a driver under the influence to which the fatal accident can be attributed will suffice." Magaw v. State , 537 So. 2d 564, 567 (Fla. 1989) (emphasis added); see also...