Court Opinion

ID: 9583356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:37:56.439407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:58.485746
License: Public Domain

*189Buchanan, J.,
dissenting:
I do not question the proposition that the Commonwealth had the burden of proving by the facts or circumstances, or both, that beyond all reasonable doubt the defendant was guilty of driving his truck while he was under the influence of intoxicants; but I agree with the trial court that the evidence was sufficient to support the finding of the jury that he did so.
When the trooper arrived at the scene about 55 minutes after the accident he smelled alcohol on the defendant’s breath, the defendant was unsteady on his feet and incoherent in his speech; but the defendant denied having had anything to drink and asserted that he did not drink whiskey and hated people who did. The trooper took the defendant to the hospital where the defendant, anxious to explain his condition, claimed he had brushed his teeth with alcohol and had drunk a glass of vinegar.
A doctor at the hospital, on examining the defendant several hours after the accident, detected a strong odor of alcohol on him. He told the doctor he had been drinking vinegar, but later said he had been drinking camphor or rock candy solution; and, in addition, that he had had nothing to drink for four days. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was flushed. No wonder the doctor testified that it was his “definite impression” that the defendant was intoxicated.
When did he get that way?
The defendant testified that up to the time of the accident he had had nothing to drink, and that after the accident he remembered nothing until he regained consciousness at the hospital, and nothing of his conversations with the trooper and with the doctor.
Not even the defendant’s wife and two children, who testified, suggested that the defendant was unconscious after the accident. Neither did the trooper, who talked to him, nor the Commonwealth’s witness Mackey, who talked to him before the trooper arrived and was still there when defendant’s son brought two pints of whiskey out from under a fence and gave them to his mother.
The mother left this son to look after the defendant while she went to call the trooper. The son said he found two sealed pints of whiskey in the truck; that he opened one and gave defendant a drink, then hid the two pint bottles under the fence, he did not know why, and later gave them to his mother.
*190The two pint bottles were in evidence, one sealed and the other with only a small quantity of whiskey taken from it.
From these facts the jury were entitled to draw reasonable inferences. Certainly they could conclude from the evidence that the defendant was drunk when the trooper arrived and still drunk at the hospital several hours later. They could conclude that the small quantity of whiskey missing from one of the pint bottles was not enough to produce such a degree of intoxication. The defendant’s son was with him from the time of the accident until the trooper arrived. He testified only that his father took the small drink out of the pint bottle after the accident. Mackey testified that he did not see the defendant take anything to drink after he arrived. Nobody testified to any drinking by the defendant after the accident and the defendant said he was unconscious from the time of the accident until after he entered the hospital.
In the Bland case and in the Fowlkes case, cited in the court’s opinion, there was no evidence at all as to where the defendants were or what they did between the uncertain time of the accidents and the time they were found under the influence of alcohol. Here the evidence shows where the defendant was and how much he drank after the accident. The jury could reasonably conclude it was not enough to produce the condition of intoxication the defendant was in and consequently that he was under the influence of intoxicants when the accident happened.
I would affirm the judgment below.