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State v. Drake6/6/2005
A tragic two-car automobile accident gives rise to this appeal. The head-on collision occurred shortly after 1:30 a.m. on August 17, 2000, in Knox County. The accident scene was on Pleasant Ridge Road, near the intersection of Deerfield Subdivision. Patricia Burke, who was driving a 1989 Chevrolet Astro minivan, died as a result of the accident. The passenger in Ms. Burke's vehicle, Gordon Wright, sustained several cracked ribs, torn ligaments on his right shoulder, a broken nose and finger, and multiple lacerations; this 63-year-old victim was hospitalized for 18 days and had been unable to work since the accident. The 21-year-old defendant was operating a Toyota pickup truck, and he sustained internal injuries, facial cuts requiring suturing, and a broken collar bone and nose for which he was hospitalized seven to eights days.
The defendant, who testified at trial, admitted that he had been drinking earlier in the evening, and he agreed that tests showed his blood alcohol level to be .19 percent. The theory of defense was that the defendant's intoxication did not cause the wreck; rather, at the point of collision, both vehicles were in the middle of the road and not in their designated lanes of traffic. The defense called two expert witnesses to corroborate the theory of defense. FBI Special Agent David Goldkoph, who was an officer and accident investigator with the Knoxville Police Department at the time of the accident, opined that each vehicle was in the wrong lane of traffic and that the point of impact was approximately the center of the roadway. Motor vehicle accident reconstructionist, Bobby Jones, who serves as a part-time Assistant Chief Deputy with the Knox County Sheriff's Department, independently verified Agent Goldkoph's conclusions and so testified.
The defendant went to trial facing seven charges: vehicular homicide by intoxication involving Ms. Burke's death (Count 1); vehicular homicide by reckless conduct involving Ms. Burke's death (Count 2); vehicular assault involving Mr. Wright (Count 3); aggravated assault causing bodily injury to Mr. Wright (Count 4); aggravated assault by deadly weapon against Mr. Wright (Count 5); DUI per se (Count 6); and DUI by intoxication (Count 7). The jury returned not-guilty verdicts on Counts 1 and 2, which charged vehicular homicide of Ms. Burke, and it found the defendant guilty of the remaining offenses. The trial court merged the convictions on Counts 3, 4, and 5 into a single conviction count for Class D aggravated assault and sentenced the defendant to a term of four years as a standard, Range I offender. On Counts 6 and 7, the court ordered service of 11 months and 29 days at 75 percent. As to the merged aggravated assault sentence, the court imposed split confinement, with six months service in custody and the remainder of the term on probation.
At the outset, we note that our appellate review has been facilitated greatly by the parties' skillful and professional advocacy at trial and by the thoughtful presentations and arguments on appeal.
I. Sufficiency of the Evidence
Inasmuch as the defendant assails the sufficiency of the convicting evidence, we begin with an overview of the testimony and evidence at trial, taken in the light most favorable to the state. See State v. Tuggle, 639 S.W.2d 913, 914 (Tenn. 1982). .
The injured passenger, Gordon Wright, was the state's lead witness. Mr. Wright explained that he and the deceased driver, Ms. Burke, had been living together for six years. They resided at 4713 Miller Road, approximately one mile from Pleasant Ridge Road. Mr. Wright had never been licensed to drive because of eye problems related to corneal implants that he r
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