May, J.
We believe that Martin’s rationale controls here. When trial court proceedings have been stayed pending resolution of the State’s interlocutory appeal, the trial court loses jurisdiction to try the defendant and has no ability to speed the appellate process. As a practical matter, applying the Criminal Rule 4(C) one-year requirement to interlocutory appeals would render an appeal by the State impossible because it would in all likelihood trigger a mandatory discharge of the defendant. Accordingly, we conclude that Rule 4(C)’s one-year limitation does not include the time during which trial proceedings have been stayed pending interlocutory appeal.
. . . .
Pelley, 901 N.E.2d at 499-500.
Here, Trial Rule 53.1 resulted in a similar loss of jurisdiction in the trial court. Pursuant to Trial Rule 53.1, when a trial court unreasonably delays in ruling on a matter before it, a party may withdraw the case from the judge and have the matter transferred to the Indiana Supreme Court for appointment of a special judge. Wood filed his Trial Rule 53.1 motion in 2011. At that time, the filing of such motion “automatically divested the trial court of jurisdiction to decide the motion or case.” [Footnote omitted.] 3A Ind. Prac., Rules of Procedure Annotated R. 53.1 (3d ed.) (emphasis added).
On February 16, 2011, Wood filed a praecipe to withdraw the submission of the case from Judge Todd pursuant to Criminal Rule 15 and Trial Rule 53.1. Our Supreme Court did not appoint a special judge until June 15, 2011, 119 days later. Neither the prosecutor nor the trial judge could control the time required to appoint a special judge; the delay in the appointment of Wood’s special judge was caused by proceedings in our Supreme Court. Following our Supreme Court’s reasoning in Martin and Pelley, in the absence of jurisdiction in the trial court, the Criminal Rule 4(C) one-year trial date was tolled for 119 days during the time period between Wood’s filing of the praecipe and our Supreme Court’s appointment of a special judge. This pushed the Criminal Rule 4(C) deadline from August 3, 2011 to November 30, 2011.
. . . .
The facts most favorable to the verdict would permit the jury to conclude Wood did not comply with the duties statutorily imposed on a boat operator after an accident because he did not “[p]rovide reasonable assistance to each person injured, including carrying or arranging for carrying each injured person to a physician, surgeon, or hospital for medical or surgical treatment if . . . it is apparent that treatment is necessary.” Ind. Code § 14-15-4-1. There was evidence Wood called only his father after the collision, and that the 911 call was made by Marietta. Marietta testified he believed it was his idea to call 911, and he could not remember any discussion with Wood about the 911 call. That would permit the jury to infer Wood did not instruct Marietta to make the call and the 911 call cannot be attributed to Wood. There was evidence Collier yelled to the people in Wood’s boat, asking them to save his wife, and in his call to 911, Collier claimed that, prior to leaving the scene, Wood said “you’ve got to try to save her.” (State’s Ex. V (audio); State’s Ex. W (transcript) at 13.) At trial, Collier testified Wood said, “[Y]ou save her yourself.” (Tr. at 398.)
The 911 dispatcher stated that help was on its way and repeatedly ordered Wood and his passengers to remain at the Fourwinds, i.e., to not return to the open water where the accident had occurred. We acknowledge Wood and his passengers complied with the instructions of the 911 dispatcher and waited at the Fourwinds for an hour and a half before the authorities arrived, but there was no evidence Wood satisfied the statutory requirements to remain at the scene and give to “the operator of each other boat and each person injured,” Ind. Code § 14-15-4-1, the information required to identify himself, the boat, and the boat’s owner. There was sufficient evidence presented at trial to permit Wood’s convictions.
. . . .
4. Problems with Indiana Code chapter 14-15-4
The evidence, when viewed in a light most favorable to the judgment, requires us to uphold Wood’s conviction. However, this prosecution has brought to light serious concerns about the statute that criminalizes Wood’s behavior. The tragic events on Monroe Reservoir on June 28, 2010, led to two deaths, a serious injury, and traumatic effects on all parties involved. In the course of Wood’s trial and this appeal, four judges have examined the facts of the case and the statute defining the charged crimes. While those judges have reached differing conclusions about the proper way to resolve the issues that arise in this case, all have agreed that the statute is problematic.
Observing the requirements of Ind. Code section 14-15-4-1 will, in many emergency situations, require behavior that defies logic, [footnote omitted] and engaging in innocent, and even advisable, behavior can leave one in violation of the statute. This statute permits no consideration of what is reasonable in any given emergency situation; nor does it permit citizens to engage in any balancing of considerations that arise in typical emergencies and are likely required by other statutes. [Footnote omitted.]
The statute does not include a specific intent element, and our appellate courts have had no occasion to articulate fair warning and ascertainable enforcement standards. That, in some fact situations, will raise due process concerns. See, e.g., State v. Schriver, 542 A.2d 686, 688-89 (Conn. 1988) (presence of a specific intent element may purge a potentially vague criminal statute of constitutional infirmity, and a facially vague law may comport with due process if prior judicial decisions have provided the necessary fair warning and ascertainable enforcement standards).
Indiana Code section 14-15-4-1 requires “[t]he operator of a boat involved in an accident or a collision resulting in injury to or death of a person or damage to a boat or other property shall do” a number of things. As Wood correctly notes, there are no exceptions for emergencies that are likely to arise during the aftermath of an accident on a body of water. Wood asks that we find this statute unconstitutionally vague because “it encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement by criminalizing reasonable choices made in stressful, emergency situations,” and it fails “to inform an ordinary person of what conduct is prohibited.” (Appellant’s Br. at 19, 20.) Wood argues that a strict reading of Indiana Code section 14-15-4-1 will criminalize activities that most would consider innocent, even advisable, responses to an emergency. While we do not find the statute unconstitutionally vague, the facts in the case before us highlight the problems that can arise under the section 14-15-4-1 definition of actions that are criminal when someone subject to the statute is faced with an emergency.
The likelihood there will be an emergency of some kind at the scene of a boating accident triggers a second concern about a conviction under Indiana Code section 14-15-23 4-1. Our Supreme Court has held that a boat operator owes a duty of reasonable care to all persons, including passengers on his or her boat. Clipp v. Weaver, 451 N.E.2d 1092, 1094 (Ind. 1983). Indiana Code section 14-15-3-3 provides:
[a] person operating a boat shall operate the boat in a careful and prudent manner, having due regard for the following: (1) the rights, safety, and property of other persons; (2) the conditions and hazards, actual and potential, then existing, including weather and density of traffic; and (3) the possible injury to the person or property of other persons.
Yet, Indiana Code section 14-15-4-1 requires, without exception, a boat operator who is involved in an accident to stop at the scene of the accident, immediately, and to provide information and requested assistance. That wording likely inhibits an operator of a boat from balancing the duty he owes to keep his own passengers safe under Indiana Code section 14-15-3-3 [footnote omitted] with the duty he owes to provide information and assistance to others pursuant to Indiana Code section 14-15-4-1.
Boating accidents give rise to inherently serious and dangerous conditions. Most states have recognized that the operator of a boat involved in an accident owes a dual and sometimes competing duty to his own passengers as well as to those in another boat. Indiana has not. . . . .
In most other states, the operator of the vessel is obliged to provide assistance only “so far as he can without serious danger to his own vessel, crew, passengers, and guests” and “must render to other persons affected by the collision, accident, or other casualty assistance as may be practicable and as may be necessary in order to save them from or minimize any danger caused by the collision, accident, or other casualty.” E.g., 625 Ill. 25 Comp. Stat. Ann. 45/6-1. These guidelines enable the boat operator to appropriately balance his conflicting duties. More importantly, this language allows a jury to consider emergency conditions as an element of the crime, and not merely as a defense. The Indiana statute does not permit that balancing and those considerations, and Wood’s conviction must therefore be affirmed.
BAKER, J., concurs.
KIRSCH, J., dissents with separate opinion:
I believe that our legislature intended the language in the statute to be applied logically and not to bring about an unjust or absurd result. It is unquestioned that Wood claimed that he and his passengers were subject to significant peril and that he acted reasonably in moving his boat and its passengers to the marina. The statute did not give Wood fair notice that it was forbidden conduct to leave the scene of the accident even if Wood feared for his safety or that of his passengers and that necessity demanded that he leave the immediate accident scene. As our appellate courts have repeatedly said, “no man shall be held criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed.” . . . As a result of such omission, Indiana Code section 14-15-4-1 is unconstitutional as applied.