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AYERS v. STATE9/22/1969
"D" the Thunderbird is shown to be still on the pavement in the east bound traffic lane, headed in a southeasterly direction, and some distance (132 feet according to Trooper Riggs' testimony) west of where the Pontiac left the highway.
Mr. Beckwith is dead and Mr. Ayers stands convicted in two courts of causing Mr. Beckwith's death by driving his automobile in a negligent or wanton disregard for the safety of others. Mr. Ayers knows whether his drinking and driving killed a man on the highway and the trial court may be, and obviously was, satisfied in his own mind that Mr. Ayers committed a negligent homicide. The question before us, however, is whether
the state proved Mr. Ayers guilty of the crime for which he is charged, under the rules of evidence applicable to circumstantial evidence in a criminal case. We are forced to the conclusion that the state has not met that burden.
The criminal negligence in this case falls most heavily on the driver who crossed the center line of the highway, and the evidence in the record before us would require surmise and conjecture for a determination or which driver crossed the center line.
If the automobile Mr. Bradley saw in his service station was the appellant's automobile, then the appellant would have been driving in the east bound lane if he continued east after leaving the station. If the appellant was on his way from Little Rock to Hot Springs, as Miss Dawson testified he was when the collision occurred, be would have been traveling the west bound lane toward Hot Springs. One version is as good as the other on this point. The girl in the automobile Mr. Bradley saw had blonde hair. Miss Dawson testified that her hair was dark brown and that she was asleep when the collision occurred. Apparently, no one else saw or talked to Miss Dawson or the other passenger, Mr. Emory, on the night of the collision, and apparently no one ever inquired as to where Mr. Beckwith had been or where he was going, or the direction he was traveling when the collision occurred. Trooper Riggs only surmised that Beckwith was traveling west by the gouged marks in the highway.
The physical evidence at the scene of the accident is consistent with most any hypothesis. The appellant could have been traveling west, struck the Pontiac spinning it around and knocking it north and west whatever number of feet it did travel, and this theory would be as consistent, if not more so, than the theory that the Pontiac struck the appellant's automobile a glancing blow in the west bound lane and knocked it almost straight back a distance of 132 feet. The distance the
Pontiac traveled following the impact is not in the record, but it is obvious from State's exhibit "C" that it was nowhere near 132 feet. There were no skid marks made by either automobile prior to impact. We conclude from the record before us that the judgment of the trial court was of necessity based on surmise and conjecture as to the facts, and that the judgment must be reversed.
Reversed.
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