Suicide Attempt is Voluntary Absence From Trial

State v. Finnegan, Minn.Ct.App., 5/5/2009.  The state charged Mr. Finnegan with the rape of a fourteen year old.  On the second day of trial Mr. Finnegan failed to appear.  An officer went out to Mr. Finnegan's house and found him unresponsive, and unable to speak, likely the result of a drug overdose.  At the request of the prosecutor, the trial continued to conclusion, a verdict of guilty.  In a decision of first impression in Minnesota, the appellate court concluded that Mr. Finnegan had made a voluntary choice to absent himself from his trial by attempting suicide instead.

Here's what Rule 26.03, subd. 2(1) says about defendant's absence from trial:

Continued Presence Not Required.  The further progress of a trial to and including the return of the verdict shall not be prevented and the defendant shall be considered to waive the right to be present whenever:

     1.  a defendant voluntarily and without justification absents himself or herself after trial has commenced;

The appellate court's focus was only on whether Mr. Finnegan was voluntarily absent without justification as a result of the overdose.  It relied upon an Eighth Circuit Opinion, United States v. Crites, 176 F.3d 800 (8th Cir. 2005), which had also concluded that a suicide attempt was a voluntary absence from trial without justification.  The appellate court did not, as Crites did, consider whether the decision then to continue with the trial was an abuse of discretion.  (Whether the public interest in the need to proceed clearly outweighs that of a voluntarily absent defendant in attending the trial.)  The Second Circuit has apparently adopted a more elaborate checklist by which to make this determination.  United States v. Tortora, 464 F.2d 1202 (2nd Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1063 (1972), (identifying factors to consider in this separate question). 

Here's the analysis by the First Circuit to an identical set of facts, which the Minnesota appellate court rejects:

The amount of cocaine Latham ingested was a potentially lethal overdose; the memorandum of his attorney states that the hospital gave him only a 25% chance of survival. Therefore, to conclude that Latham voluntarily absented himself from the trial, one would have to find that he either (a) knowingly took a lethal dose, or (b) had fine-calibrated the dosage so precisely that he would reach a critical medical condition, but would somehow manage to survive. Neither premise withstands scrutiny. It defies common sense to maintain that a sane defendant would attempt suicide to avoid a trial on drug charges. And, death is not the type of “voluntary absence from trial” that concerns us. Alternatively, if one were to find that Latham knew just the right amount of cocaine to ingest, so as to require hospitalization, but avoid death, it would still make no sense for him to have pursued this course because he would end up in custody (hospitalized) and upon recovery would still have to stand trial. This situation is markedly different from fleeing to avoid the trial altogether.

United States v. Latham, 874 F.2d 852 (1st Cir. 1989).

A few weeks back, the appellate court rejected a deaf driver's claim of entitlement to an interpreter during a  DWI arrest.  Who's next?