Gill v. State
| Decision Date | 02 June 1953 |
| Docket Number | 3 Div. 955 |
| Citation | 37 Ala.App. 210,65 So.2d 821 |
| Parties | GILL v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
W. Clarence Atkeison, Prattville, and J. B. Atkinson, Clanton, for appellant.
Si Garrett, Atty. Gen., and L. E. Barton, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Thos. M. Haas, Montgomery, of counsel, for the State.
In the court below the accused was convicted of manslaughter in the second degree.
The dead body of Leslie Manning was found on a highway in Autauga County, Alabama. The bodily injuries indicated to a degree of certainty that he had been run over by a truck or an automobile and death resulted on this account.
The State was unable to produce any witnesses who saw the collision or who could give any facts relating to the circumstances incident to the immediate occurrence.
Prior to the trial below, and also as a witness in his own behalf, the defendant denied that he ran over the deceased. The only evidence which tended to establish that he did was some particles of thread or cloth which were found beneath the body of the defendant's automobile and some indentations on the car.
The state toxicologist testified that these were of the same fiber as that found in the garments worn by the deceased when he was injured.
If we assume that this presented a factual inquiry for the determination of the jury on the question of the identity of the automobile which struck the deceased, we are left without evidence to establish the circumstances incident to the fatal injury or who was driving the automobile at the time.
When the State rested in the introduction of its evidence in chief, appellant's counsel made a motion to exclude the evidence. Terry v. State, 29 Ala.App. 340, 197 So. 44; Denson v. State, 32 Ala.App. 554, 28 So.2d 174. This motion was overruled.
The sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the charge in the indictment and the judgment of conviction was also presented by the request for the general affirmative charge and a motion for a new trial.
'Manslaughter in the second degree is defined as the unlawful killing of another human being, without malice and without the intent to kill or to inflict the injury resulting in death, but accidentally committed by the accused while he was doing an unlawful act amounting to a misdemeanor, or accidentally committed by the accused while he was doing a lawful act, but in a grossly negligent or improper manner.' Jones v. State, 21 Ala.App. 234, 109 So. 189, 191. See also, Wilson v....
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Smith v. State
...Garner v. State, 34 Ala.App. 551, 41 So.2d 634 (1949); Massengale v. State, 36 Ala.App. 195, 54 So.2d 85 (1951); Gill v. State, 37 Ala.App. 210, 65 So.2d 821 (1953); White v. State, 37 Ala.App. 424, 69 So.2d 874 (1954), and Ayers v. State, 48 Ala.App. 743, 267 So.2d 533 In a case very simil......
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Touchstone v. State, 3 Div. 141
...speed.' Griffin Lumber Co. v. Harper, 247 Ala. 616, 25 So.2d 505. Furthermore, to paraphrase the language of the court in Gill v. State, 37 Ala.App. 210, 65 So.2d 821, it would be pure conjecture, under this evidence, to conclude that the truck the witnesses testified to seeing and hearing ......
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Clayton v. State, 7 Div. 570
...316, cert. denied, 294 Ala. 201, 314 So.2d 317 (1975); Touchstone v. State, 42 Ala.App. 141, 155 So.2d 349 (1963); Gill v. State, 37 Ala.App. 210, 65 So.2d 821 (1953). Driving a motor vehicle upon a public highway while intoxicated constitutes a misdemeanor, punishable at imprisonment for n......