## Facts

- A Fairbanks police officer stopped Robert W. Malone for a traffic offense and learned Malone lacked a valid driver’s license.
- When asked to exit the car, Malone refused; as the officer began opening the door, Malone drove away.
- The officer pursued Malone in a high-speed chase through Fairbanks.
- During the chase, the pursuing patrol car collided with a third-party vehicle driven by Michael Hildebrandt.
- The officer suffered a broken leg; Hildebrandt suffered multiple broken bones and a spleen injury requiring surgical removal.
- A grand jury indicted Malone, including two assault counts tied to the collision: first-degree assault (serious physical injury by means of a dangerous instrument) against Hildebrandt and third-degree assault (physical injury by means of a dangerous instrument) against the officer.
- Malone asserted the collision may have been caused by negligent driving by the officer or Hildebrandt, which he claimed could be a superseding/intervening cause defeating criminal causation.

## Issues

1. Whether, at the grand jury stage, the prosecutor must instruct on superseding/intervening causation based on a possibility that the officer or a third-party motorist acted negligently.
2. Whether the absence of a superseding-cause instruction rendered the grand jury’s causation instructions legally inadequate, requiring dismissal of the two assault counts.

## Decision

- The Alaska Court of Appeals reversed the superior court’s dismissal of the two assault counts and reinstated them.
- The court held the prosecutor was not required to give a special instruction on superseding/intervening causation based only on speculative third-party negligence.
- The court concluded the grand jury was adequately instructed on causation for purposes of determining probable cause.

## Legal Principles

- For indictment purposes, a grand jury must find probable cause, not resolve all refined questions of causation or anticipate all trial defenses.
- Criminal causation is satisfied when the defendant’s conduct is a substantial factor in producing the injury; intervening acts do not relieve liability unless they constitute a superseding cause.
- Negligent conduct by police or third parties during events set in motion by a defendant’s reckless flight is generally foreseeable and does not, by itself, break the causal chain.
- A prosecutor need not instruct a grand jury on superseding/intervening cause absent a concrete basis to believe an intervening act legally severed causation.

## Conclusion

Because Malone’s reckless flight and the resulting pursuit made collision-related injuries a foreseeable consequence, and because the grand jury received sufficient general causation guidance to assess probable cause, the assault counts were improperly dismissed and were reinstated.


State v. Malone, 819 P.2d 34 (Alaska Ct. App. 1991)