State v. Castine

173 N.H. 217

238 A.3d 1070

The STATE of New Hampshire

v.Jami CASTINE

No. 2018-0341

Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

Argued: January 9, 2020

Opinion Issued: April 24, 2020

Gordon J. MacDonald, attorney general (Elizabeth C. Woodcock, assistant attorney general, on the brief and orally), for the State.

Christopher M. Johnson, chief appellate defender, of Concord, on the brief and orally, for the defendant.

BASSETT, J.

The defendant, Jami Castine, was convicted on two charges of first degree assault against the minor victim, see RSA 631:1, I(d) (2016), as well as one charge of an enhanced felony version of second degree assault against the victim's brother, see RSA 631:2, I(a) (2016); RSA 651:6, I(e) (2016). The Trial Court (Delker, J.) sentenced the defendant to a stand-committed prison sentence of 10-to-20 years on one of the first degree assault convictions, a consecutive 10-to-20 year sentence on the enhanced second degree assault conviction, and a consecutive 10-to-20 year sentence on the second first degree assault conviction that was suspended in its entirety for a period ending 10 years from the defendant's release. The defendant appeals the trial court's denial of her motion to set aside the jury's verdict, and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, as to one of her two first degree assault convictions. She argues that one of the first degree assault convictions must be reversed because the evidence at trial was insufficient to exclude the reasonable conclusion that the injuries and serious bodily harm alleged in the two first degree assault indictments were the result of a single act. We agree that one of her first degree assault convictions must be reversed, and remand.

We note that the defendant does not challenge her other convictions.

The jury could have found the following facts. The victim's mother (Mother) has four children, including the victim. In November 2014, a friend introduced Mother to the defendant, who had provided babysitting services to the friend. Between March 4 and April 8, 2016, when the victim was approximately eighteen months old, Mother left him in the defendant's care for varying periods of time.

On March 28, Mother took the victim from the defendant because the defendant told her he had been vomiting, refusing to eat or drink, and his lips were very dry. Mother took the victim to Elliot Hospital where he was examined by Dr. D'Aprix, an emergency room physician who diagnosed him with viral gastroenteritis. He was given medication for nausea and an electrolyte solution to treat dehydration. The victim returned to the defendant's care on March 31.

On April 8, the defendant left the victim in her boyfriend's care at their home while she went out. Approximately ten minutes after the defendant left, the victim began crying or screaming. The defendant's boyfriend testified that he picked the victim up from his crib, and the child "went limp" and became unresponsive. The defendant's boyfriend summoned help from the defendant's family and the victim was taken to Exeter Hospital, later transferred to Elliot Hospital, and finally "med-flighted" to Boston Children's Hospital, where he was examined on April 9 by Dr. Ianniello. According to the medical testimony at trial, the victim had sustained, among other injuries, two subdural hematomas, consisting of an area of bleeding on "the front top part on the left side [of the brain] and ... also one on the right side," as well as "retinal hemorrhages and a retinal detachment."

The defendant was convicted of first degree assault on one indictment alleging that she recklessly caused "serious bodily injury to [the victim] ... by inflicting non-accidental trauma, in the form of retinal hemorrhaging and detached retinas," and on a second indictment alleging that she recklessly caused serious bodily injury to the victim "by inflicting non-accidental trauma, in the form of brain bleeds." The defendant argues that "in the face of expert testimony that one cannot know whether the brain and eye injuries resulted from the same or separate blows, the State failed to prove the requisite separate blows necessary to support the separate convictions and sentences."

To convict the defendant of first degree assault as charged, the State was required to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant "recklessly cause[d] serious bodily injury to a person under 13 years of age." RSA 631:1, I(d). In State v. Lynch, 169 N.H. 689, 156 A.3d 1012 (2017), we held that the unit of prosecution for the form of simple assault criminalizing "[r]ecklessly caus[ing] bodily injury to another," RSA 631:2-a, I(b) (2016), was "each individual act of causing bodily injury to another," Lynch, 169 N.H. at 708, 156 A.3d 1012. We concluded that "[t]he plain language of the statute establishes that the legislature has criminalized the act of recklessly causing bodily injury — not each individual injury." Id. Relying upon Lynch, the defendant contends, and the State does not dispute, that the unit of prosecution under RSA 631:1, I(d) in this case is each act of knowingly or recklessly causing serious bodily injury to a person under 13 years of age, not each individual injury. We agree. Accordingly, to convict on both first degree assault charges, the State was required to prove that the victim's "retinal hemorrhaging and detached retinas," as charged in the first indictment, and his "brain bleeds," as charged in the second indictment, were caused by separate acts.

"A challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence raises a claim of legal error; therefore, our standard of review is de novo." State v. Vincelette, 172 N.H. 350, 354, 214 A.3d 158 (2019). "Although our general rule is that we will uphold a jury's verdict unless no rational trier of fact could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, we employ a different test when the evidence is solely circumstantial." State v. Woodbury, 172 N.H. 358, 363, 214 A.3d 147 (2019) (citation omitted). "In the latter circumstance, to be sufficient to sustain the verdict, the evidence must exclude all reasonable conclusions except guilt." Id.

The defendant argues that we must use the standard we apply in solely circumstantial evidence cases because the State had no direct evidence that she caused the victim's brain and eye injuries by means of more than one assault. We agree. As the defendant notes, "No eyewitness testified to seeing [the defendant] assault [the victim] even once with such force as would cause the brain and eye injuries." Nor did the defendant confess to any such assaults. Rather, the State's case depended upon drawing inferences from medical opinion testimony as to when the injuries occurred, the defendant's access to the victim at those times, eyewitness testimony as to the defendant's maltreatment of the victim and his fear of her, the exclusion of other possible perpetrators, and the defendant's attempts to "cover her tracks" with implausible explanations for the victim's injuries.

Because the evidence as to an element of proof in this case was "solely circumstantial, it must exclude all reasonable conclusions except guilt." Vincelette, 172 N.H. at 354, 214 A.3d 158.

[T]he proper analysis is not whether every possible conclusion consistent with innocence has been excluded, but, rather, whether all reasonable conclusions based upon the evidence have been excluded. We do not review each circumstance proved in isolation or break the evidence into discrete pieces in an effort to establish that, when viewed in isolation, these evidentiary fragments support a reasonable hypothesis other than guilt. Rather, we must consider whether the circumstances presented are consistent with guilt and inconsistent, on the whole, with any reasonable hypothesis of innocence.

Id. at 354-55, 214 A.3d 158 (citation omitted).

The defendant argues that, because the medical experts could not determine whether the victim's injuries resulted from one blow or from multiple blows, one reasonable conclusion consistent with the evidence and, therefore, inconsistent with guilt on two first degree assault charges, is that a single blow caused the eye injury and the brain injury. Therefore, the defendant argues, the evidence is insufficient to sustain two first degree assault convictions. We agree.

The jury heard testimony from several physicians who treated the victim, including Dr. D'Aprix and Dr. Ianniello, as well as physicians who had reviewed the victim's medical records, including Dr. Chan and Dr. Ricci. The jury heard expert testimony that both types of injuries the victim sustained — subdural hematomas and retinal hemorrhaging/detachment — could result from the same mechanism and that those injuries commonly occur together. Several medical experts opined that the injuries could have been the result of a single inflicted trauma or separate inflicted traumas, and that it was not possible to determine with any certainty whether the injuries with which the victim presented on April 8 occurred at the same time or separately.

Dr. Ianniello stated: "I think unfortunately we can't say whether this all happened in one incident or if there was repeated trauma." She specifically testified that whether the bleeding in the victim's brain had been the result of one or multiple events, the presentation would have been the same and agreed with counsel that "[i]t would not be possible to determine [from the CT scans taken on or after April 8] whether [the victim] had any preexisting subdural hematomas because if there was a prior [subdural hematoma ], the blood would just mix with the new blood and it's difficult to tell about a preexisting hematoma." Similarly, when asked if she had an opinion as to whether the victim's injuries occurred at the same time or at different times, Dr. Chan testified: "Commonly, all — all these things can occur with the same event. They're all ... consistent with the acceleration deceleration injury, so given the fact that it would be such...