Court Opinion

ID: 9567210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:50:36.376834+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:25.570921
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge,
dissenting. The defendant was tried and convicted on an indictment charging him with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants. The defendant appeals from the judgment and sentence and the overruling of the motion for new trial as to the general grounds only.
Was there sufficient evidence in this case to convict the defendant of driving a motor vehicle on the public highway while intoxicated? He was involved in a traffic mishap in which a person was killed, and the state’s principal witness, a state highway patrolman, testified that he was notified of the incident by radio and went to the scene. He testified that the defendant admitted to him at the scene that he was the driver of the vehicle. He also testified that the driver was intoxicated when he — the patrolman — arrived on the scene. Thus, there was sufficient evidence to show that the defendant was the driver of the vehicle, and that he was intoxicated when the patrolman saw him. But one question remains: Did the evidence prove that defendant was intoxicated at the time he was driving the vehicle immediately before and at the time of the wreck?
The patrolman testified that he was notified of the wreck by radio at approximately 9:43 p.m., and that he immediately drove to the scene of the wreck and reached there at approximately 9:50 p.m. But the patrolman did not know when the wreck occurred, and was very vague in this respect. He testified that the wreck may have occurred an "hour or more” before he was notified of it. How long is "an hour or more”? Granting that the defendant may have been under the influence of an intoxicant when the patrolman reached the scene, (although defendant denied it) and saw him at 9:43 p. m., *642does it follow that the defendant would have been intoxicated an hour before that time? But we are not limited to an hour. The patrolman said the wreck may have occurred "an hour or more” before he was notified. Does that mean two hours, or three hours, or six hours before the wreck?
In a criminal case the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; hence when evidence is merely speculative it must be construed in favor of the defendant. See Rutland v. State, 46 Ga. App. 417, 422 (167 SE 705); Jones u. State, 50 Ga. App. 97 (176 SE 896); Barnwell v. State, 100 Ga. App. 285, 288 (111 SE2d 138); Odom v. State, 106 Ga. App. 60, 63 (126 SE2d 472). Proof that one is under the influence of an intoxicant at 9:43 p.m. is not sufficient to show that he was intoxicated one hour, or six hours, before that time. The only reasonable construction of the patrolman’s testimony as to the time of the occurrence of the wreck is that the patrolman simply did not know when it occurred and his testimony that it was at 9:30 p.m., or "an hour or more” before that time was nothing more than mere speculation. A defendant cannot be legally convicted on speculative evidence. Southern Grocery Stores v. Greer, 68 Ga. App. 583, 590 (23 SE2d 484); Bankers Health &c. Ins. Co. v. Fryhofer, 114 Ga. App. 107, 112 (150 SE2d 365). There was no other testimony or evidence in this entire record to show when the defendant had the wreck. It is not enough to prove him under the influence when the patrolman saw him at the scene of the wreck; it was absolutely necessary to a conviction that credible testimony be offered as to how long before then defendant was driving the vehicle. It is a matter of common knowledge that intoxication does not last forever, and it is unnecessary to introduce evidence on matters of common knowledge, human observation and cause and effect. Code § 38-102.
But, the state also offered the state patrolman as an *643expert witness who testified that he gave defendant a chemical screen (breath) test at 10:45 p.m., which was one hour later, and which test went above "the red line.” Under interrogation by state’s counsel, he testified that this meant "approximately 10% alcohol content” and that meant he was "under the influence.” But later he testified that this means “.10%” (note there is a vast difference between 10% and .10%, and it was never cleared up for the jury as to which one was correct). The patrolman further testified that in his opinion the defendant would have been more under the influence of alcohol one hour earlier because he did not have anything to drink after he was arrested and the alcohol content "drops two points within an hour.” The meaning of this language was never clarified. What did he mean by "point?” One-tenth, one-thousandth, or smaller, or was he referring to the pica point system instead of the decimal system? It thus appears that the expertise of the witness was insufficient to prove the fact of intoxication at the time of the wreck. In the recent case of Stephens v. State, 127 Ga. App. 416 (193 SE2d 870), an expert witness was allowed to testify that the blood alcohol content of a person would drop .02% per gram per hour and that the defendant therein had a blood alcohol content of .19% by weight of alcohol in the blood according to the methods approved by the State Crime Laboratory. That witness further testified that a person with that much alcohol content "at the time of taking the blood has been intoxicated a period of two to two-and-a-half hours before the blood was drawn.” Here the expert witness gave no such testimony, and although he possessed a permit to give the approved intoximeter test, he did not give it, but instead gave a screening or breath test not authorized by Code Ann. § 68-1625 (Ga. L. 1953, Nov. Sess., pp. 556, 575; 1966, pp. 70, 71; 1968, pp. 448, 449).
In Elam v. State, 125 Ga. App. 427 (2) (187 SE2d 920), *644the state’s witness failed to qualify as an expert as to the "alcolyser” test administered by blowing up a balloon and chemically measuring the alcohol content therein. In the case sub judice, just as in the Elam case, "no expert testimony was offered by the State as to the physical or chemical makeup of this test,” or "its approval as to its reliability by scientists generally,” although the witness may have testified sufficiently so as to establish his competency to administer the test. It was further held in the Elam case, at page 428: "The 'alcolyser’ test was not shown to have been conducted by any procedures approved by the State Crime Laboratory and the results of the test were not calibrated in any percentile by weight of alcohol in the defendant’s blood or breath under Ga. L. 1968, pp. 448, 449 (Code Ann. § 68-1625). Hence the presumption provided for in this statute does not arise. This same statute states that it 'shall not be construed as limiting the introduction of any other competent evidence bearing upon the question whether the person was under the influence of intoxicating liquor.’ Under the evidentiary showing made in this case, we do not think the results of the alcolyser test was competent evidence ...” The expert’s testimony here simply did not establish any presumption as to the defendant’s blood alcohol content.
In the case sub judice we have only conclusions, without basis in fact, as to when the "accident” occurred, and we have no evidence that the defendant was driving an automobile while under the influence of intoxicants as was shown by circumstantial evidence in the recent Stephens case. The officer testified defendant admitted he was driving, but not when, or how, and the exact time he had been driving. The corpus delicti necessary to be proven here was the driving or operating of a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. There is some circumstantial evidence that defendant had been driving a motor vehicle on July 4,1969, but the evidence is insufficient to satisfy the mind and conscience beyond a reasonable doubt, and only raises a suspicion of *645guilt from the circumstances. Code §§ 38-109, 38-110; Burkhalter v. State, 125 Ga. App. 386 (188 SE2d 166), and cases cited therein.
I would reverse the judgment of the lower court.