STATE v. PHILLIPS

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Docket Number

No. 67040.

Attorney(S)

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Speedy O. Long, Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-respondent. Patrick L. Durusau, Jena, for defendant-relator.

Judges

PER CURIAM.

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Smart Summary

Factual and Procedural Background

The defendant was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated under La.R.S. 14:98. After the State presented its evidence in a bench trial, he moved for an acquittal under La.C.Cr.P. art. 778. The trial court denied the motion, found him guilty, and imposed a $400 fine. [1]

The Louisiana Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the defendant’s contention that State v. Lindinger required a directed verdict of acquittal. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence. [1][2][3]

Legal Issues Presented

Whether the State’s circumstantial evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant operated the vehicle while intoxicated. [1][4]
Whether State v. Lindinger compelled an acquittal because the trooper did not see the vehicle move and could not establish when it had stopped or when the defendant became intoxicated. [1][4][5]

Arguments of the Parties

Defendant’s Arguments

The State failed to prove that the defendant had driven the truck when it left the road. [4]
The State also failed to prove that he was intoxicated before, rather than after, the truck came to a stop. [4]
He argued that State v. Lindinger required granting his motion for acquittal. [1]

Table of Precedents Cited

Precedent	Rule or Principle Cited For	Application by the Court
State v. Lindinger, 357 So.2d 500 (La. 1978)	Under La.R.S. 14:98, the State must prove that the accused actually operated a vehicle while intoxicated; mere presence near a vehicle does not establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt. [5]	The court found Lindinger distinguishable because Phillips was inside the truck at the steering wheel, with the lights on, while the truck was partly on and partly off the road. [1][5][6]
State v. Mathews, 375 So.2d 1165 (La. 1979)	A conviction may be sustained where the evidence would justify a rational fact finder in concluding that the State excluded every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. [1]	The court applied this principle and concluded that the evidence excluded reasonable hypotheses that another person had driven the truck or that the defendant had become intoxicated only after parking it. [1][6]

Court’s Reasoning and Analysis

The trooper found the defendant seated at the steering wheel of a truck positioned half on the parish road and half on its shoulder. The truck’s lights were on despite it being midafternoon, and the defendant was barely conscious and strongly smelled of alcohol. [7]

Although the trooper did not see the truck move and could not determine how long it had been parked, the Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that the truck’s position and the defendant’s location behind the wheel supported the inference that he had driven it there and lost consciousness before fully leaving the road. [7][4][6]

The court distinguished Lindinger, where the defendant was merely found near a truck and the evidence did not establish that he had driven it while intoxicated. Here, the defendant’s presence inside the vehicle at the steering wheel, together with the vehicle’s lights and position, excluded the reasonable possibility that someone else had driven and abandoned it. [5][6]

The same circumstances also excluded the hypothesis that the defendant had driven the truck while sober and only afterward drank himself into a stupor while leaving the vehicle’s lights on and its rear obstructing the parish road. [6]

Holding and Implications

AFFIRMED. The Supreme Court upheld the denial of the acquittal motion and affirmed the defendant’s conviction and $400 sentence. [1][2][3]

The direct effect was that the conviction and sentence remained in force. The opinion discusses no broader implications; no new precedent was set. [2][3]

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STATE OF LOUISIANA v. HARRY V. PHILLIPS.

PER CURIAM.

We granted certiorari to review defendant's claim that our decision in State v. Lindinger, 357 So.2d 500 (La. 1978) compelled the granting of his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal in the trial court. Defendant was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, in violation of La.R.S. 14:98. On January 21, 1980, in trial before the court alone, he moved for an acquittal at the close of the state's case. La.C.Cr.P. Art. 778. Defendant argued that the state's evidence failed to prove circumstantially his operation of the vehicle while intoxicated on the day in question. The trial court denied the motion, found defendant guilty as charged (defendant not presenting any evidence of his own) and sentenced him to pay a fine in the amount of four hundred ($400.00) dollars. On reviewing the record before us, we agree with the trial court that defendant's reliance on Lindinger is misplaced. As the evidence in this case would have justified any rational fact finder in the belief that the state had excluded every reasonable hypothesis of innocence, State v. Mathews, 375 So.2d 1165 (La. 1979), we now affirm defendant's conviction.

Evidence at trial showed the following. In the afternoon of June 28, 1978, Joseph Trunzler, a trooper with the state police, spotted defendant's blue pick-up truck parked at the intersection of Highway 8 and a parish road in Catahoula Parish. The rear wheels of the pick-up truck were on the parish road, the front wheels on the shoulder just off the road. Although it was the middle of the afternoon, the truck's lights were on. Stopping to investigate, Trunzler found defendant seated at the steering wheel: "[h]is lower torso was maybe behind the wheel. The rest of him was slumped over on the seat." "The smell of alcohol was tremendous," the trooper testified, "and I tried to get [defendant] aroused and I couldn't get him aroused." Placing the barely conscious defendant under arrest, Trunzler then carried him to the patrol car. Trunzler conceded freely that he never saw the car move and could not tell how long it had been parked at the intersection.

Defendant keyed his argument below to these concessions by Trunzler. He thus argued that the state had failed to prove either that he had been driving the truck when it went off the road, or, that he was intoxicated before, not after, the truck rolled to a stop. The trial judge disagreed and added the following observations: "I think the . . . particularly important item in evidence before me now is the fact that this vehicle was half on and half off the public highway . . . the circumstances warrant finding that he is the individual who drove it there and that was simply as far as he could go . . . the fact that he was found under the wheel, behind the accelerator and brake would . . . as so point to the fact that he is the one which drove the vehicle there and passed out before he got off the highway."

We find the trial court's reasons persuasive. In State v. Lindinger, supra, this Court emphasized that under La.R.S. 14:98, the state must prove the accused has in fact operated a vehicle while intoxicated. In Lindinger, defendant was discovered, resting against a pick-up truck some 50 to 100 feet off the highway, skied marks tracing the truck's path from the road. Evidence of defendant's intoxication was overwhelming. We noted, however, that defendant's mere presence by the truck was not sufficient to support the inference (beyond reasonable doubt) he had driven it there or, more importantly, that he had done so while intoxicated. We therefore reversed defendant's conviction.

In this case, on the other hand, defendant was found inside the truck at the steering wheel. The truck's lights were on, although it was midafternoon, and the vehicle had stopped half on and half off the parish road. We agree with the trial court that this evidence excluded any reasonable possibility that some other person had driven the truck to that location and then abandoned it in that manner to defendant. We also find that this evidence excluded any reasonable hypothesis that defendant had driven the truck to that location and then, with lights on and the back of his vehicle poking out onto the parish road, began drinking himself into a stupor.

Accordingly, we uphold the ruling of the trial court and affirm defendant's conviction and sentence.

AFFIRMED.

MARCUS and WATSON, JJ., dissent.