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Payne v. State8/29/2003
nything to drink." He stated that Appellant "referred frequently to her husband and her husband had left her; she'll never see her husband again; she'll never see her son again" and that everything she said was ambiguous and not related to the questions he had asked her. Appellant appeared drowsy to Lloyd and her eyes seemed "glazed over and without depth." When Appellant spoke, she spoke "slowly deliberately, but her voice would raise and then drop low enough where you couldn't hear her." After she spoke to Lloyd, he escorted Appellant to his vehicle. During their walk to Lloyd's vehicle, Lloyd kept one hand on Appellant because he thought that she might fall. Appellant was walking with no direction, and every few seconds Lloyd had to direct Appellant either verbally or by "pulling on her" to try to direct her to the vehicle because she was "incoherent" and "didn't know where she was going."
After Appellant sat down in Lloyd's vehicle, Lloyd summoned the EMS personnel who had arrived at the scene because he thought that she needed medical attention. After the EMS personnel attended to Appellant, Lloyd took her to the police station. He confirmed that Hatley performed the HGN test. Appellant was also asked to perform the "walk-and-turn" and the "one-legged stand" tests, but she did not perform those tests. Lloyd stated that after Appellant performed the HGN test, the chief of police decided to release her. When asked whether he would have released Appellant or arrested her, Lloyd replied that he would have arrested her because he believed that she was intoxicated. Lloyd testified that Appellant's incoherence, inability to answer questions directly, "the glazy look in her eyes without focus," and the way that she walked "slumped with no direction and would turn basically wherever momentum took her" led him to believe that she was intoxicated. Although Lloyd did not smell any alcohol on Appellant at that time, he thought that Appellant may have been drinking vodka because "oftentimes people can drink vodka, become intoxicated, and you can't smell it on their person." After a search of Appellant's vehicle, however, Lloyd did not find any vodka bottles.
On cross-examination, Lloyd stated that he could not remember whether Appellant had a "boot on her foot" or if crutches were located in her truck. He agreed with the assertion that if Appellant's foot was broken or if it had previously been operated on, then she would not have been able to easily walk to Lloyd's vehicle. Lloyd also acknowledged that he did not write anything in his report about Appellant being drowsy or that her eyes were "glazed over," but he specifically remembered Appellant exhibiting those conditions.
On re-direct examination, Lloyd stated that after the accident, Appellant told him that Taylor had walked out in front of her. When asked if she had been drinking and how long it had been since her last drink, Appellant replied that she had drank one 16-ounce beer "about five hours ago" and that she was not drunk. Lloyd asked Appellant if she had been injured during the accident, but Appellant "had an incoherent response." Based upon Lloyd's conversations with Appellant after the accident, he believed that she did not understand the events that had previously occurred.
Wade Norris ("Norris"), a deputy with the Henderson County Sheriff's Department, testified that after he arrived at the accident scene, he parked his vehicle behind Appellant's truck and went to speak to her. As Norris was talking to Appellant, he noticed that she "appeared to be very intoxicated at the time and very confused." Although he could not smell any alcohol on Appellant, he was sure she was intoxicated. When he asked Appellant where
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