Reynolds v. State

• Decision Date: 10 February 1931
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 662.
• Citation: 134 So. 815,24 Ala.App. 249
• Parties: REYNOLDS v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

134 So. 815

24 Ala.App. 249

REYNOLDS v. STATE.

3 Div. 662.

Court of Appeals of Alabama

February 10, 1931

Rehearing Denied April 7, 1931.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Butler County; A. E. Gamble, Judge.

Willie Reynolds was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Certiorari denied by Supreme Court in Reynolds v. State(3 Div 959)134 So. 817.

Powell & Hamilton, of Greenville, for appellant.

Charlie C. McCall, Atty. Gen., and Merwin T. Koonce, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.

SAMFORD J.

Appellant was indicted for manslaughter in the first degree; charge being that he unlawfully and intentionally killed Myrtice Stringfellow by running into her with an automobile, but without malice.The deceased was killed in an automobile accident in October, 1929.At the time of the accident, the defendant, his wife, and one R. S. Coskrey were going to Pine Apple from the direction of Greenville, Ala.In going they passed a road tractor to which was attached a drag, which was being driven at the time by a negro named Eugene Watts, who was dragging the road.Just as the car driven by appellant was passing the drag, it struck the deceased, who was on the road at the time, with such force as to cause her death.The insistence on the part of the state was that defendant was under the influence of liquor, that he was driving at a rapid rate of speed, and that the accident was caused by this and his recklessness in driving of the car.The defendant insisted that he was not drinking; that just before meeting the tractor he was driving at the rate of thirty-five miles per hour, and that in passing he slowed down to about thirty miles per hour; that he tried to keep a lookout down the road in the direction he was going, but that, because of the sun and the dust raised from the tractor, he was unable to see the deceased, who, the undisputed testimony shows, was traveling in the road in the same direction defendant was going, and that he did not know the deceased was on the road until after she was struck.

The jury found the defendant guilty of manslaughter in the first degree, and fixed his sentence at five years in the penitentiary.Defendant made a motion for a new trial.This was overruled, and he appeals.

The indictment charged the unlawful and intentional killing of deceased.It is contended for appellant that the evidence must prove the intent to kill before a conviction can be justified.To constitute manslaughter in the first degree there must either be a positive intent to kill or an act of violence from which ordinarily, in the usual course of events, death or great bodily harm may be the consequence.The foregoing has been the accepted definition of manslaughter in the first degree since the cases of Harrington v. State,83 Ala. 9, 3 So. 425;Williams v. State,83 Ala. 16, 3 So. 616.The indictment is in Code form and charges manslaughter as above defined.If the defendant in this case so recklessly drove an automobile along the public highway and in such manner as to endanger human life, and death resulted, the act would be manslaughter in the first degree whether the positive intention to kill was proven or not.As to this, the evidence was in conflict, and...