People v. Stewart

Jarvis Stewart (defendant) stabbed Daniel Smith in the stomach after an argument. Smith was taken to the hospital and underwent surgery for his injuries, but Smith went into cardiac arrest while under anesthesia and died a month later without ever regaining consciousness. Following Smith’s death, Stewart was charged with murder. At trial, the prosecution (plaintiff) called Dr. Dominick Di Maio to testify regarding Smith’s cause of death. Di Maio testified, consistent with the autopsy report, that Smith’s death was caused by a stab wound and complications during the ensuing surgery. However, the trial court also received evidence from Di Maio’s testimony and Smith’s medical records indicating that during Smith’s operation, the surgeons discovered that Smith had a hernia that was unrelated to the stabbing. After the surgeons had sutured the stab wound and concluded the stomach operation, the surgeons began operating on the hernia. Smith had gone into cardiac arrest and suffered oxygen loss to his brain during the hernia portion of the operation. Di Maio testified that the surgeons likely performed the hernia operation because they believed that correcting the hernia would avoid subsequent complications or gangrene. However, Di Maio also testified that Smith likely would have survived the operation if the surgeons had treated only the stab wound and not the hernia. Di Maio could not explain exactly what caused Smith’s cardiac arrest and was hesitant to opine because the surgeons’ report and anesthesiologist’s report disagreed on that issue. According to the surgeons, the anesthesiologist had stopped providing Smith with oxygen during the surgery. However, according to the anesthesiologist, Smith had suffered a bronchial spasm. Di Maio admitted on cross-examination that if the anesthesiologist had not provided Smith with oxygen, that alone could have caused the cardiac arrest and led to Smith’s death. The jury ultimately found Stewart guilty of manslaughter, concluding that Stewart had assaulted Smith to inflict serious physical injury and had unintentionally caused Smith’s death. The appellate division affirmed Stewart’s conviction, and Stewart appealed to New York’s highest court.