Court Opinion

ID: 9606248
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:48:25.036736+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:34.006809
License: Public Domain

Sognier, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In Georgia, as elsewhere in the United States, a defendant is not required to prove his innocence; rather, the State must prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This court cannot relieve the State of this burden by an assumption, unsupported by logic or evidence, that an intoxicated person passed out under the steering wheel of his parked vehicle is, or must have been, operating a moving vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.
The majority opinion infers that because appellant did not call his girl friend as a witness his testimony did not present a reasonable hypothesis save that of guilt. Aside from the fact that appellant did not have to prove his innocence, such an inference overlooks the fact that there is a very plausible explanation for not calling the witness, namely, that if the girl friend testified she would incriminate herself by testifying that she drove the truck while under the influence of alcohol, and thus, she could refuse to testify.
OCGA § 40-6-391 (a) provides, in pertinent part: “A person shall not drive or be in actual physical control of any moving vehicle while: (1) Under the influence of alcohol; ...” (Emphasis supplied.) Not only was appellant not driving his parked vehicle, it can hardly be said that he was in physical control of the vehicle when he was either asleep or passed out under the steering wheel. Thus, he did not violate the statute cited by driving or being in actual physical control of a moving vehicle.
In Carr v. State, 169 Ga. App. 679 (2) (314 SE2d 694) (1984), the trial court charged the jury that “being in actual physical control of a vehicle might be accomplished merely ‘by sitting therein on a public highway or elsewhere, and while in control and under the steering *57wheel, starting the motor, under which circumstances being in the actual physical control of the vehicle is a separate offense from the actual driving of the vehicle.’ ” The court also recharged the jury that “the term ‘movement’ did not necessarily refer to movement of the vehicle itself but could also refer to ‘acts which engage the machinery of the vehicle, that alone or in sequence will set in motion the motive power of the vehicle.’ ” In reversing on the ground that these charges were an incorrect statement of the law, we held: “These charges were not a correct statement of current law but were evidently derived from judicial interpretations of former Code Ann. § 68-1625 (Ga. L. 1953, Nov. Sess., pp. 565, 575), under which it was unlawful for any person under the influence of alcohol to operate any vehicle, without regard to whether it was moving. See e.g., Flournoy v. State, 106 Ga. App. 756 (128 SE2d 528) (1962). That statute was superseded by Ga. L. 1974, pp. 633, 693, which serves as the basis for the present code section. The former proscription against merely operating a vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor has been replaced by a proscription against driving or being ‘in actual physical control of any moving vehicle’ while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. OCGA § 40-6-391 (a) (Code Ann. § 68A-902).” Id. 680.
Decided November 5, 1987
Rehearing denied November 24, 1987.
John H. Calhoun, Jr., for appellant.
David B. Pittman, Solicitor, for appellee.
Appellant’s explanation as to what he was doing in the truck was plausible, and was supported by the fact that the truck was in the road directly across from the trailer where his girl friend lived. Since there was no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that appellant was operating or in physical control of a moving vehicle, I would reverse the conviction in this case.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Birdsong and Presiding Judge Banke join in this dissent.