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State v. Estes10/13/2005
Factual Background
On September 22, 2002, at around 2:00 A.M., paramedics and state troopers were called to the scene of a one car collision on Highway 87, also known as Fulton Road, in Haywood County. Paramedics discovered the body of the victim, Jeffrey Graves, lying on the ground next to a totally demolished vehicle. Parts of the vehicle were strewn over a churchyard. The damage was so massive that the make of the vehicle was not immediately discernible. The Appellant was initially observed standing near the vehicle but collapsed soon thereafter.
Chris Milton of the Brownsville Fire Department was an initial emergency responder to the scene. Upon encountering the Appellant, Milton noted the strong odor of alcohol. The Appellant advised Milton that he was driving the vehicle. Paramedic Donna Conley rode with the Appellant in the ambulance to the hospital. She testified that, although the Appellant smelled of alcohol, he appeared alert and coherent when he told her that he was the driver of the vehicle. State Trooper William (Tommy) Booker was dispatched to the scene and interviewed the Appellant around 3:15 A.M. at the hospital. The Appellant confirmed that he was the driver of the vehicle, but, when asked whether he remembered what happened, the Appellant stated, "No, I don't." A blood alcohol specimen was obtained from the Appellant. Tests results established that the Appellant's blood alcohol level was .12 percent approximately an hour and a half after the crime had occurred.
After receiving a phone call concerning the incident, Erica White, the Appellant's fiancée, followed the ambulance from the scene to Haywood Park Hospital in Brownsville. White testified that when she visited the Appellant in the emergency room, she was unable to communicate with him:
I went over to him and I tried to touch his hand but he was shaking really badly and I kept trying to talk to him but I couldn't get him to really even talk to me. I mean his teeth were shattering really bad. I mean, he was just really - - he was just shaking - - his whole body. Everything was shaking.
At trial, Trooper Max Anderson with the Critical Incident Response Team (CRIT) of the Tennessee Highway Patrol testified as an expert in accident reconstruction. Based upon measurements from yaw marks left on the roadway by the vehicle and the use of a computerized sensing diagnostic module which read the car's air bag, Anderson calculated that the vehicle was traveling 91 miles per hour five seconds before the crash. Anderson opined that the driver lost control of the vehicle at a curve in the road and abruptly jerked the car in the opposite direction in an effort to regain control. As a result, the car skidded off the road, began a clockwise rotation, became airborne, and hit a tree. Upon impact with the tree, both the driver and the passenger were ejected from the vehicle.
In November of 2002, a Haywood County grand jury returned a two- count indictment against the Appellant charging him with vehicular homicide by intoxication and vehicular homicide by recklessness. Following a jury trial, the Appellant was found guilty of vehicular homicide by intoxication. The trial court sentenced the Appellant to fourteen years in confinement. The Appellant's motion for a new trial was denied with this appeal following.
Analysis
I. Sufficiency of the Evidence
The Appellant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions. Specifically he argues "the only information relating to the identity of the driver are the statements given to the medical personnel and the trooper by the [Appellant]. There was not any other evidence
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