## Facts

- After a softball game, John P. Doub III attended a club party and admitted drinking six beers.
- While leaving the club, Doub’s pickup struck two parked vehicles; he left the scene because he was concerned about having been drinking.
- Roughly two hours later, Doub rear-ended a Cadillac carrying nine-year-old Jamika Smith; an investigator testified Doub’s truck was “going tremendously faster” and rode up onto the Cadillac, forcing it into the pavement and then into a tree.
- Doub offered no aid, fled the scene, and initially denied involvement by claiming his truck had been stolen.
- Smith died about 15 hours later from blunt traumatic injuries caused by the collision.
- About six months later, Doub admitted to a former girlfriend that he had been drinking and smoking crack cocaine and had caused the fatal collision; the statements also described the earlier parking-lot collisions and additional drug and alcohol use before the fatal crash.
- A jury convicted Doub of second-degree “depraved heart” murder under K.S.A. 21-3402(b) and leaving the scene of an injury accident; he appealed only the sufficiency of the evidence for the murder conviction.

## Issues

1. Whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, a rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Doub caused an unintentional killing recklessly “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life” under K.S.A. 21-3402(b).

## Decision

- The Kansas Court of Appeals affirmed the second-degree depraved-heart murder conviction.
- The court held the evidence was sufficient for a rational jury to find the “extreme indifference” element beyond a reasonable doubt.
- The court concluded Doub’s conduct exceeded ordinary reckless driving associated with involuntary manslaughter.

## Legal Principles

- K.S.A. 21-3402(b) covers an unintentional killing committed recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.
- Depraved-heart second-degree murder is distinguished from reckless involuntary manslaughter by the additional requirement of “extreme indifference to the value of human life.”
- In fatal automobile-collision cases, the required mental state for depraved-heart murder may be inferred from factors such as intoxication, excessive speed, near or nonfatal collisions shortly before the fatal crash, failure to heed signs or warnings, failure to aid, flight, and prior driving offenses.
- On sufficiency review, the court considers all evidence in the light most favorable to the State and asks whether a rational fact-finder could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

## Conclusion

The court held that Doub’s intoxication and crack use, earlier collisions and decision to keep driving, extreme speed and force in the fatal crash, and flight without rendering aid permitted a rational jury to find recklessness showing extreme indifference to human life, satisfying K.S.A. 21-3402(b) and supporting a depraved-heart second-degree murder conviction.


State v. Doub, 32 Kan. App. 2d 1087, 95 P.3d 116 (Kan. Ct. App. 2004)