Lay v. State, 4 Div. 64
| Decision Date | 11 June 1935 |
| Docket Number | 4 Div. 64 |
| Citation | 162 So. 319,26 Ala.App. 458 |
| Parties | LAY v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Geneva County; Emmet S. Thigpen, Judge.
Charlie Lay was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree, and he appeals.
Reversed and remanded.
E.C Boswell, of Geneva, R.S. Ward, of Hartford, and Lowrey Stone of Blakely, Ga., for appellant.
A.A Carmichael, Atty. Gen., and Jas. L. Screws, Asst. Atty. Gen for the State.
The deceased named in the indictment came to her death as a result of an automobile accident in a head-on collision with a larger car driven by appellant. He was indicted, charged with the offense of murder in the second degree, and upon his trial was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree, his punishment being fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for ten years.
Upon the trial of this case in the court below, and in this court upon appeal, there is no insistence that the defendant intentionally killed the deceased; so the principal question involved is whether or not there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could legally find that the defendant was driving his car in a manner to evidence a wanton and reckless disregard of human life at the time and place when the fatal accident occurred.
The deeply deplorable and tragic accident, its heart-rending results, of itself, cannot be made the basis or premise from which the acts of the accused should be determined or his guilt adjudged. That must be ascertained and determined solely from the evidence upon the trial as to the occurrence complained of.
The evidence in this case, as shown by the record, tends to show that shortly after dark, on the day in question, the deceased and three others were traveling in a car at a moderate rate of speed on their way to Hartford, and, at a sharp bend or curve in the highway, the collision occurred which caused the death of deceased, Mrs. Farmer, an elderly lady. The evidence also tends to show that the defendant, with several persons in his car, was traveling the same highway, but was going in an opposite direction, and a short distance from the place of accident passed another car going in the same direction passing said car by going to the left of it, and increased the speed of his car while passing the car in front and crashed into the on-coming car immediately thereafter. It is undisputed that the Chevrolet car in which deceased was riding was traveling at a moderate rate of speed (25 to 30 miles an hour) and that the driver thereof, a woman, saw the approaching car and drove as far to her right as the road would allow in order to avoid a collision. The evidence as to the speed the Hudson car driven by appellant at the time was in conflict. Some of the witnesses testified the car was traveling from 30 miles an hour to 45 miles. Others testified it was traveling 45 to 60 miles an hour; this conflict made a jury question.
Rules of the Road, including traffic violations, etc., Gen.Acts of Alabama, 1927, page 363 et seq., provides, among other things, other than those specified in subdivisions 1 to 7 inclusive in said rules set out and prescribed (by section 51 (b) on page 367 of the act, supra.
As stated, there is no insistence upon the part of the state that the homicide complained of was the result of the intentional act of the accused, and we think this affirmatively appears, as the defendant did not know the deceased nor any of the occupants in the car with her, and had never seen any of them. The state, therefore, relied for a conviction upon the theory that the defendant at the time was driving his car in a manner as to evidence a wanton and reckless disregard of human life at the time and place of the homicide. This the defendant denied, and while in effect it was...
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Commander v. State
...That must be ascertained and determined solely from the evidence upon the trial as to the occurrence complained of." Lay v. State, 26 Ala.App. 458 at 459, 162 So. 319 (1935). Yet we cannot state as a matter of law that the evidence was insufficient to support a conviction for murder in the ......
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Barnett v. State, 6 Div. 192.
...in the extreme and naturally caused untold grief and sorrow to her loved ones and friends. But, as stated, in our case of Lay v. State, 26 Ala.App. 458, 162 So. 319: "The deeply deplorable and tragic accident, heart-rending results, of itself, cannot be made the basis or premise from which ......
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Willis v. State
...exist, and these rules should be uniformly applied and not misconstrued or misapplied to meet a certain state of facts. Lay v. State, 26 Ala.App. 458, 162 So. 319. The controlling question in all criminal prosecutions is guilt or innocence of the person accused of the crime for the commissi......
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Lewis v. State
...was placed in her husband's car and driven at once to the hospital where she expired some time afterwards. In the case of Lay v. State, 26 Ala.App. 458, 162 So. 319, this court said, and the expression here quoted is to the case at bar notwithstanding there is a differentiation in the evide......