Court Opinion

ID: 9624976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:23:52.483335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:58.237896
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Judge,
concurring specially.
In view of the prior decisions of the appellate courts of this state dealing with the application of Code Ann. § 70-207 (Ga. L. 1965, pp. 18, 31; 1966, pp. 493, 498; 1968, pp. 1072, 1078); Code Ann. § 2-3704 (now Code Ann. § 2-3104, effective January 1, 1977); Code Ann. § 2-3708 (now Code Ann. § 2-3108, effective January 1,1977); and the sufficiency of the evidence in support of the jury’s verdict, I agree that the majority reached the proper results in this case.
However, in my view, under the facts disclosed by the record and transcript, and assuming without deciding that all of the remaining parts of the trial court’s charge are correct, that portion of the court’s charge dealing with the law of "accident” was neither demanded nor authorized by the evidence. But who knows how the jury arrived at its verdict and who is to say that the jury based its verdict solely on the defense of "accident”? Based on *617the defendant’s own testimony, he was traveling thirty-five to forty miles per hour on a rainy day on an asphalt surface approximately one automobile length behind the vehicle in front of him. This evidence, from the defendant’s own lips, would preclude the defense of "accident.”
I, therefore, concur in the judgment only.