## Facts

- Letner was indicted for the homicide of Alfred Johnson after events on the Emory River, a dangerous stretch of water.
- Alfred Johnson, his brother Walter Johnson, and Jesse Letner were crossing the river in a small boat.
- From a high bluff overlooking the river, gunshots were fired into the water very near the boat.
- State proof included statements attributed to Letner that he fired “to frighten the boys,” that the boat turned over, and that he had “sunk the boat,” along with evidence of prior hostility connected to alleged thefts.
- After the first shot, the occupants became alarmed; after a second shot, Walter jumped into the river in fright, causing the boat to capsize.
- Walter and Alfred drowned as a result of the capsize.
- Jesse Letner testified that shots were fired from the bluff but he could not identify the shooter and believed it was not the defendant; Letner did not testify and offered no affirmative proof.
- The jury convicted Letner of involuntary manslaughter and fixed punishment at two years’ imprisonment.

## Issues

1. Whether Letner could obtain appellate review of alleged defects in the indictment where a motion to quash was not brought to the trial court’s attention and was not preserved in the motion for new trial.
2. Whether Letner’s gunfire was the proximate cause of Alfred Johnson’s death, or whether Walter’s jump and the resulting capsize was a superseding intervening cause.
3. Whether an involuntary manslaughter instruction was reversible error where it correctly stated the law but included an unobjected-to factual misstatement about which boy jumped from the boat.
4. Whether instructing the jury to fix a “definite period” of imprisonment, rather than expressly stating it as the maximum term, was prejudicial error.

## Decision

- The conviction for involuntary manslaughter was affirmed (with modification concerning sentencing instructions going forward).
- Any challenge to the indictment was waived because the motion to quash was not properly presented to and preserved in the trial court record for appellate review.
- Letner’s act of firing at or near the boat was the primary proximate cause of Alfred Johnson’s drowning; Walter’s jump and capsize were treated as a natural and probable response to the danger created by the gunshots.
- The involuntary manslaughter charge was substantively correct; the factual misstatement in the illustration was not preserved by specific objection and was not shown to be prejudicial.
- The punishment instruction was not prejudicial because the definite term fixed by the jury operated as the maximum term; the court recommended that trial courts instruct juries to fix the maximum term within the statutory range.

## Legal Principles

- Appellate review of charging-instrument defects may be forfeited when a defendant fails to present a motion to quash to the trial court and fails to preserve the issue in a motion for new trial.
- In criminal causation, a defendant is responsible for consequences that are the natural and probable result of an unlawful act.
- A victim’s or third party’s panic-driven reaction to danger created by the defendant generally does not break the chain of causation when the reaction is a foreseeable response.
- Involuntary manslaughter may be based on an unlawful act or culpably negligent conduct creating a grave risk of death, even without intent to kill.
- A jury instruction error that does not misstate the governing law and is not properly preserved, or is not shown to affect the verdict, is not grounds for reversal.
- When a jury fixes a definite term of imprisonment within statutory limits, that term functions as the maximum term for sentencing purposes.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Letner’s involuntary manslaughter conviction, holding that firing shots near a small boat on a dangerous river proximately caused the drowning because the capsizing from a frightened jump was a natural and foreseeable consequence; it also applied waiver rules to unpreserved indictment objections and found no prejudicial error in the challenged jury instructions.


Letner v. State, 299 S.W. 1049 (Tenn. 1927)