Court Opinion

ID: 9636098
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:16:39.022716+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:42.437367
License: Public Domain

Henderson, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion.
In appeals from the judgment of a court, sitting without a jury in a criminal case, the scope of review on the facts is broader than in a jury case, and not limited to the legal sufficiency of the evidence. Diggins v. State, 198 Md. 504. We must, of course, give weight to findings of disputed fact where credibility is involved. In the instant case, with due allowance for these findings, I think the trial court misconceived the applicable rule of law.
The only act - of negligence relied on by the State was excessive speed. ' After the State’s first witness had *595testified that the accused was “going a little bit fast— doing better than thirty”, the State’s Attorney stated: “My whole case is based on an estimate of speed. I will put on another witness and see what I can develop.” He then produced a witness who testified that the car was being driven at “about sixty miles an hour.” This was corroborated to some extent by the skid marks, although there was no expert testimony as to what speed they would indicate. Nor was the testimony wholly satisfactory as to the relation of speed to the accident, for the point of impact was not established and there was testimony that the car went a considerable distance beyond the place where the body was lying. The defendant and a bystander witness produced by him both testified to a speed of between 30 and 35 miles an hour. The trial court, in his opinion, said as to the speed, “I don't know whether it was sixty miles an hour or not. That may have been exaggerated.” He nevertheless characterized the speed as “grossly excessive.” The statutory limit was 25 miles per hour.
Even in civil cases it has been held that speed in excess of the statutory limit is not evidence of negligence per se, nor is it always the proximate cause of an accident. It must be weighed in the light of the surrounding circumstances. In the instant case it is undisputed that the accused had a green light at the intersection, so there was no occasion to reduce speed there, whether we accept his version of speeding up to avoid another car or not. The time was Sunday evening, and although this is a market area, the market was closed and there were not many people, on the street. When the accused was almost across the intersection, a man came into the bed of the street from between parked cars north of the cross-walk, at a point where motor vehicles have the right of way. This man had been drinking, as shown by the post mortem examination. The driver made every effort to stop, but could not avoid striking him. In a civil action, there might well have been a directed verdict for the defendant on *596the ground of contributory negligence. Cf. West v Belle Isle Cab Co., 203 Md. 244, 251-252, 100 A. 2d 17, 21, and cases cited. It is true that contributory negligence would not be a bar to a prosecution for criminal negligence, but since all negligence is relative, it cannot be ignored in considering the extent of the defendant’s breach of duty, or the question of proximate cause.
But assuming that the excessive speed of the car was some evidence of negligence and that it was a contributing cause of the accident, it does not follow that it was gross negligence under the circumstances. Ordinary negligence is not enough. There must be an element of “wanton or reckless disregard for human life.” Hughes v. State, 198 Md. 424, 432; State v. Chapman, 101 F. S. 335. In the Hughes case, the action of the angry defendant, in deliberately swerving his truck into a group of pickets beside the road, while not intended to kill but only to alarm, showed a wanton and reckless disregard of the probable consequences. It is this element that is lacking in the instant case. The argument that, because of the speed, the car was not under sufficient control to meet the unexpected entry into the street of a negligent pedestrian, and that this establishes a criminal liability, could be applied with equal force to any accident anywhere, if a car is driven beyond the speed limit. The argument ignores the fundamental distinction between civil and criminal liability. To establish the latter, I think the evidence must show a degree of negligence that is the substantial equivalent of criminal intent.
The case of Hobbs v. State, 91 So. 555 (Fla.), cited in the opinion of the court, holds that speed, under some circumstances, may show culpable negligence, but the circumstances are not stated in the opinion. In the more recent case of Preston v. State, 56 So. 2d 543 (Fla.), the court reversed a conviction where the speed was 50 miles per hour, at an intersection in Jacksonville where the limit was 25 miles per hour, on the ground that excessive speed alone is not necessarily culpable negli*597gence sufficient to sustain a charge of manslaughter. See also Smith v. State, 65 So. 2d 303 (Fla.), where a conviction was reversed on similar grounds, in a case involving a pedestrian also at fault.
Again, while the case of People v. Angelo, 159 N. E. 394 (N. Y.), correctly states the rule, its application is illustrated by the case of People v. Gardner, 8 N. Y. S. 2d 917, 921. In that case a speed of from 50 to 65 miles per hour was held not sufficient to sustain a convcition where the car struck a culvert, for the court said: “The test is not satisfied by proof of excessive speed amounting to negligence but proof of speed of that character— if such was the case — and other circumstances which, as we have seen, together must show a reckless disregard by the accused of the consequences of his conduct and his indifference to the rights of others.”
In Johnson v. Commonwealth, 256 S. W. 2d 527 (Ky.), relied on in the opinion, the facts were much stronger than in the instant case. There, the State produced evidence of a speed of from 45 to 70 miles per hour on a city street, and the car went out of control and ran up on the sidewalk into a group of boys in plain view. The court stated that the evidence would support a conviction, although the case was reversed on the ground that the question of action in an emergency, which was the only defense, was not properly left to the jury.
I think the verdict of the trial court was clearly wrong under the circumstances and that the judgment should be reversed.