Court of Appeals of Kansas Finds Prosecutor Didn’t Err by Defining “Road Rage” & Saying the Defendant Committed it When it Wasn’t the Crime Charged

During closing arguments, a prosecutor can’t substitute or interchange elements of the crimes charges with elements of other crimes or acts that aren’t (or can’t be) charged. So, does a prosector in an involuntary manslaughter/aggravated battery trial violate this principle by giving a definition of “road rage” and claiming the defendant committed it? This was the question addressed by the Court of Appeals of Kansas in its recent opinion in State v. Payne, 2025 WL 350101 (Kan. App. 2025).

In Payne,

On June 5, 2020, [Jared] Payne was driving on Interstate 435 with his two sons, Ethan and Caden, a minor child. This portion of the highway was three lanes travelling in both directions. Payne’s vehicle collided with a United Postal Service (UPS) semi-truck driven by Kelly White causing Payne’s vehicle to hit a bridge pillar and explode into flames, resulting in Caden’s death. Payne and Ethan escaped the vehicle. Both were burned, among other injuries, and taken to the hospital. There were various accounts of the events leading to the collision which were ultimately presented to the jury at Payne’s trial.

Payne was charged with involuntary manslaughter/aggravated battery, and “[t]he State’s theory throughout the case was that Payne, in a fit of road rage, knowingly and recklessly drove his vehicle in a manner that resulted in the vehicle crash on the highway.”

At the close of the case

The State began its closing argument as follows:

“Road rage. If you look it up in the dictionary, it says aggressive behavior caused by a stressful or frustrating situation. If you look up accident—that word has been used a lot—an event that begins by chance.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this crash did not happen by chance. The defendant’s actions caused this crash.”

After he was convicted, Payne appealed, claiming that the prosecutor erred by giving definitions of “road rage” and “accident” when those were not the crime charged. The Court of Appeals of Kansas disagreed, concluding as follows:

Payne claims the prosecutor erred by defining the terms “accident” and “road rage” during closing argument. He argues the prosecutor confused the jury by replacing elements of the crimes charged with those definitions. But the record does not support Payne’s claim. The prosecutor, in two sentences, gave brief definitions for road rage and accident before immediately pivoting to the evidence to argue that Payne acted recklessly with conscious disregard or indifference to human life. Payne concedes this in his brief.

Payne cites later in the closing argument where the prosecutor said Payne “had road rage that night, had no regard for anybody at all and killed his own son and burned up his other one.” But the mere reference to road rage is unsurprising where the entire case centered on whether Payne or White drove aggressively and caused the crash. And nowhere in the State’s closing argument did the prosecutor substitute or interchange elements of the crimes, nor did the prosecutor suggest that a road rage finding equated to a guilty finding. Instead, the prosecutor focused on the evidence and whether it showed Payne acted recklessly, which Payne concedes was an element to the crimes charged. Although the better practice would be to avoid adding definitions in a closing argument, the prosecutor did so here briefly and passingly before shifting to the evidence and elements of the crimes charged. We find no prosecutorial error.

-CM