State v. Roop, 362
| Decision Date | 08 November 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 362,362 |
| Citation | 122 S.E.2d 363,255 N.C. 607 |
| Parties | STATE, v. Dale Junior ROOP. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
T. W. Bruton, Atty. Gen., and Harry W. McGalliard, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Bowie, Bowie & Vannoy, West Jefferson, for defendant, appellant.
Defendant assigns as error the denial by the court of his motion for judgment of involuntary nonsuit made at the close of all the evidence. G.S. § 15-173.
The State's evidence shows the following facts:
About 6:30 p. m. o'clock on 21 November 1959 Mack Spencer, 18 years old, was driving a 1955 Ford automobile north on N. C. Highway 194 in Ashe County at a speed of 40 or 45 miles an hour. Bobby Gene Campbell, 20 or 21 years old, the owner of the automobile, was sitting in the front seat on the right hand side. He had asked Spencer to drive, telling him he had drunk too much wine, and was too high to drive. About four hours previously Spencer had taken a little drink of wine out of Campbell's bottle. Spencer was following an automobile in front of him and driving about 100 to 150 feet in its rear. It was dark, Spencer had his lights on dim, and could see ahead about 75 to 100 feet. The highway is a gravel and tar road, 18 feet wide, with 8 feet shoulders on each side, and has no center line painted on it. At and near the scene of collision, hereafter set forth, the highway is practically level, and has a slight curve. Spencer was driving downgrade, but the grade is not steep. He was intermittently braking his automobile.
Spencer first saw an automobile with its lights on meeting him, when it was passing the automobile in front of him. The grade for this automobile was up. Spencer does not know how far the approaching automobile was from him when he first saw it, nor how much time elapsed from his first seeing it until the collision occurred. The approaching automobile seemed to be coming pretty fast, but Spencer would not attempt to estimate its speed. It was coming straight into Spencer's automobile. Spencer pulled his automobile over as far as he could get to his right without going off the road into a high bank below him. The approaching automobile kept coming on, and hit Spencer's automobile in his right hand lane of travel. It was a head-on collision. In the collision Spencer was seriously injured, and Campbell received injuries resulting in his death en route to a hospital. The approaching automobile was a 1953 Pontiac driven by defendant Roop, 20 years old.
William Valentine, a highway patrolman, arrived at the scene about 7:40 p. m. o'clock. When he arrived the Ford was sitting completely off the highway on the north side headed in a northerly direction toward the edge of the highway. The Pontiac was sitting practically crossways in the highway. The automobiles were 7 1/2 feet apart. Valentine testified: ' He could find no skid marks for the Ford. Most of the mud, grease, and 'stuff' he found on the highway were in the right hand lane headed north of the Ford automobile. He saw freshly 'chipped places' in the gravel and tar road, 'two feet from the center or 11 feet from the side, which would be two feet from the center line,' where the front end of one of the automobiles had fallen down and cut out places in the road. The Pontiac automobile had in it the odor of an alcoholic beverage.
Jimmy Sexton, a college student, saw defendant Roop at Marvin Spencer's service station about a mile from the scene of the collision a short time before the collision. Roop was a perfect stranger to him. He had no conversation with him. He was about a foot from him. From observation of Roop's actions he thought Roop had been drinking some intoxicating beverage.
Mack Spencer told the officers investigating the collision several times the deceased Campbell was driving the automobile, and did not tell them he was driving it, until a month after the wreck, when presented with evidence that he, Spencer, was driving it at the time of the collision.
Darwin Walker, a witness for the State, carried Roop, Mack Spencer, and Campbell to the hospital in an ambulance. When Walker was recalled by the defendant, he testified he talked with Roop, and smelt no alcoholic odor on him or his breath.
The defendant's evidence tended to show that Mack Spencer was driving the Ford 70 to 75 miles an hour, travelling behind an automobile travelling at a like speed, that Spencer attempted to pass the automobile in front of him, and that the collision occurred on defendant's side of the road. That defendant was driving about 35 miles an hour. Defendant Roop had drunk no alcoholic beverage that day.
Culpable negligence, from which death proximately ensues, makes the actor guilty of manslaughter, and under some circumstances guilty of murder. State v. Cope, 204 N.C. 28, 167 S.E. 456; State v. Wooten, 228 N.C. 628, 46 S.E.2d 868; State v. Norris, 242 N.C. 47, 86 S.E.2d 916; State v. Phelps, 242 N.C. 540, 89 S.E.2d 132.
Culpable negligence in the law of crimes necessarily implies something more than actionable negligence in the law of torts. State v. Stansell, 203 N.C. 69, 164 S.E. 580; State v. Cope, supra; State v. Becker, 241 N.C. 321, 85 S.E.2d 327; State v. Phelps, supra.
Mere proof of culpable negligence does not establish proximate cause. To culpable negligence must be added that the act was a proximate cause of death to hold a person criminally responsible for manslaughter. State v. Everett, 194 N.C. 442, 140 S.E. 22; State v. Satterfield, 198 N.C. 682, 153 S.E. 155; State v. Lowery, 223 N. C. 598, 27 S.E.2d 638; State v....
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State v. Goldberg, 433
...and interlocking evidence in the light most favorable to it, as we are required to do on a motion for judgment of nonsuit, State v. Roop, 255 N.C. 607, 122 S.E.2d 363, we think the State's evidence was sufficient to carry the case to the jury on indictment INDICTMENT 8149 This indictment is......
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State v. Colson
...except when not in conflict with the State's evidence, it may be used to explain or make clear the State's evidence. State v. Roop, 255 N.C. 607, 122 S.E.2d 363; Strong's N.C. C. Index, Vol. 1, Criminal Law, § 99. Applying such rule in considering defendant's motion for a judgment of compul......
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State v. Hefler
...across the street at night and were struck by defendants as they were driving in their proper lane of travel. In State v. Roop, 255 N.C. 607, 122 S.E.2d 363 (1961), the evidence showed that defendant's car was only two feet in the left lane when the accident occurred. In State v. Hancock, 2......
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State v. Mapp
...a killing, there must be evidence that the act constituting culpable negligence was a proximate cause of the death. State v. Roop, 255 N.C. 607, 610, 122 S.E.2d 363 (1961). Defendant contends that the State failed to show that defendant's acts proximately caused the death. Defendant argues ......