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State v. Bailey4/6/2005
ight or nothing. She was just sitting there, I didn't see no movement or nothing.
Mr. Loomis also described the defendant's car immediately prior to the impact:
Q: Did you have time to see it coming down the lane in behind Ms. Ingram?
A: Uh-huh. Right when she came around behind Mr. Butch, I saw her coming straight on into Ms. Ingram's car.
Q: Did she veer right or left?
A: No, from --
Q: Did she throw on her brakes?
A: It was kind of unavoidable, because I mean, I can't really say how fast she was going, I don't really know. But if you're in that situation coming around behind the car, you really didn't have no chance of braking or anything like that. I mean, it was just like that.
Finally, witness Jarred Dooley stated that he saw the victim's car for a brief moment before the impact and that it "straddled the turn lane and the fast lane." Mr. Dooley also stated that it appeared to him that the driver of the victim's car "may have been kind of slumped over somewhat."
In State v. Archer, 619 So.2d 1071 (La.App. 1 Cir.), writ denied, 626 So.2d 1178 (La.1993), the court reversed a conviction following a bench trial for vehicular homicide. The court reversed upon its finding that, under the Taylor standard, the evidence that the defendant's intoxication combined with his operation of a vehicle to cause the death of the victim was insufficient. In Archer, the intoxicated defendant's van was traveling southbound on a heavily traveled intersection at night. Id. The defendant turned left in order to enter the parking lot of a service station located on the northeast corner of the intersection. Id. At the scene, the defendant told the investigating officer that at the time he made his left turn, the traffic light controlling traffic at the intersection was showing a green arrow, allowing for traffic to make an unimpeded left-hand turn. Id. However, upon turning left, the defendant struck the Toyota Camry in which the victim was a guest passenger, which was traveling north. Id. The court reversed the defendant's conviction for the following reasons:
After carefully reviewing the entirety of the trial testimony and exhibits, we conclude that the state did not sufficiently establish that defendant's unlawful blood alcohol concentration combined with his operation of the van to cause the victim's death. Defendant's statement at the scene that he had a green left turn arrow was neither disproved nor disputed. Although the state presented the testimony of a person who had been in a nearby parking lot and of a driver who was stopped at the intersection before the accident, neither bystander was able to say which driver (defendant or Laird or both) had a green light. At the time of the accident, defendant was turning into the service station and not onto Perkins Road. Thus, he had an obligation to yield to oncoming traffic. However, if the light showed a green turn arrow for defendant to turn onto Perkins, it would be reasonable for defendant (whether sober or intoxicated) to assume oncoming traffic would stop at the red light, thus allowing him to turn safely into the station. We recognize that the state's accident reconstruction expert concluded that defendant took no evasive action prior to the accident. The expert explained that defendant should have turned to the right to go back into the turning lane in order to avoid the accident. However, because defendant already was in the process of turning to the left, his attention would have been focused on the service station and not on any traffic presumably stopped at the light. According to the expert, because it was nighttime and because of the sl
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