Facts
- Thomas S. Levesque and Julie Ann Barnes lived for months in a vacant, five-story Worcester warehouse with a compartmentalized, windowless interior that was difficult to traverse and fight fires in.
- Their second-floor room contained ordinary items and used candles, flashlights, and a kerosene heater due to lack of electricity.
- During an altercation on December 3, 1999, a lit candle was knocked over, starting a fire in their room.
- Defendants tried unsuccessfully to extinguish the fire; it spread until the room was fully involved.
- Defendants left the building without notifying authorities, despite having an operable cellular phone and multiple opportunities to call for help.
- About two hours later, a passerby reported the fire; firefighters responded, were told there might be people inside, and entered to search.
- Six firefighters died during the firefighting and rescue operation.
- A grand jury indicted each defendant on six counts of involuntary manslaughter based on starting the fire and failing to report it.
Issues
- Whether grand jury evidence that defendants accidentally started a fire and then failed to report it, despite means and opportunity, was sufficient to establish probable cause for involuntary manslaughter based on wanton or reckless conduct by omission.
- Whether the indictments had to be dismissed due to alleged impairment of grand jury proceedings from omitted exculpatory evidence, assertedly misleading presentation, or allegedly defective indictment form.
Decision
- The court reversed the order dismissing the indictments and remanded for further proceedings.
- The evidence, viewed favorably to the Commonwealth, supported probable cause that defendants committed involuntary manslaughter.
- Defendants’ creation of a life-threatening risk supported a duty to take reasonable steps to mitigate that risk, including summoning assistance.
- A grand jury could find wanton or reckless conduct where defendants knowingly left an escalating fire unreported and thereby increased foreseeable risks to responders.
- The court rejected claims that the grand jury process was impaired; the asserted omissions and inaccuracies were not materially misleading or likely to affect the decision to indict, and the indictment form was adequate.
Legal Principles
- When a defendant’s conduct creates a life-threatening risk to others, the defendant has a duty to take reasonable steps to alleviate or mitigate the danger; failure to act may support criminal liability when closely connected to the prior risk-creating conduct.
- Involuntary manslaughter may be based on wanton or reckless conduct by omission where the defendant knowingly disregards a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result.
- For grand jury review, the question is probable cause, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt; evidentiary conflicts and gaps generally do not warrant dismissal if the elements are supported.
- The prosecution is not generally required to present all exculpatory evidence to a grand jury; dismissal is warranted only when an omission would probably have affected the decision to indict.
- Indictments are sufficient if they adequately inform the defendant of the offense and its elements.
Conclusion
The court held that causing a dangerous warehouse fire triggered a duty to take reasonable steps to reduce the risk, and that a deliberate failure to report the fire could constitute wanton or reckless conduct supporting involuntary manslaughter indictments; it also held that the grand jury proceedings were not materially compromised.