 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Sims v. State3/5/2004
This appeal brought by Gene Robert Sims raises an issue concerning the assessment of victim injury points for the crime of leaving the scene of an accident involving *46 death. We conclude that victim injury points were properly assessed and affirm.
Mr. Sims was driving his wife's truck when he struck and killed Bernell Williams (the "Victim"). For reasons not specified Mr. Sims left the scene of the accident without ever stopping the truck. He was charged with violating section 316.027(1)(b), Florida Statutes (2001), and found guilty as charged in the information.
Sheila Asbury, one of the passengers in the Sims vehicle, testified that the occupants of the truck were looking for drugs, having already smoked crack cocaine and drunk beer prior to the accident. She stated that before Mr. Sims hit the Victim, she saw the Victim laying on top of a bicycle in the middle of the road. She described the sounds made by the accident as a "loud dragging like metal ... it was dragging bad." Because the Victim was laying in the middle of the road, Mr. Sims had only two choices. He could either hit the Victim or hit the guardrail on the side of the road. In any event, the trial court eventually determined that the accident was virtually unavoidable.
The medical examiner testified at trial that at the time of his death the Victim had a blood alcohol level of .196, and that he had been struck while he was lying in the street. He theorized that the Victim had fallen off of his bicycle and was lying in the middle of the road when he was struck. The medical examiner further testified that the victim's death was "instantaneous" upon impact, or certainly "within a second or two." The autopsy revealed that the Victim had lacerations of the head, neck, and face; bruises and abrasions on the lower chest; skin rubbed off from large areas of his arms and from his lower back to the top of his shoulders; a torn scalp; crushing injuries to his entire chest and to the right side of his abdomen; a broken right pelvis; every rib fractured on both sides of his torso; a crushed and torn liver; a crushed and torn heart; extensive lung injuries; a broken back and neck; and a crushed skull with extensive injuries to the brain. The doctor concluded that the Victim's injuries were consistent with his being hit, dragged, and run over.
A law enforcement homicide investigator who responded to the scene indicated that he saw the Victim on the side of the road, where he had been placed by two passers-by. When asked what he was able to determine from an examination of the accident scene, he said "Basically all I could say for sure is that the gentleman had been hit by some type of vehicle and drug down the road for a bit and was dead."
Prior to sentencing a pre-sentence investigation was prepared which reflected a minimum sentence of 8 months incarceration. At the sentencing hearing, however, the State argued in favor of adding 120 victim injury points to Mr. Sims' Criminal Punishment Code scoresheet. The trial judge agreed, and but for a downward departure, the result was a lowest permissible incarcerative sentence of eight years. Because the trial judge found, among other things, that the accident was "nearly unavoidable," he downwardly departed, and sentenced Mr. Sims to five years in the custody of the Department of Corrections, followed by five years of probation.
Mr. Sims contends that the trial court improperly assessed "victim injury points" to his scoresheet, thus resulting in a minimum sentence longer than called for under the guidelines. He argues that he was charged only with the offense of leaving the scene of a crash involving a death. He was not charged with a crime specifically concerning the injury inflicted on the Victim because the Victim's actions m
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 Florida DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|