where officers arrived "soon after" collision, "clearly there was not sufficient intervention of time from the main event to affect its admissibility"
How later courts described this case
- where officers arrived "soon after" collision, "clearly there was not sufficient intervention of time from the main event to affect its admissibility"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
On Rehearing
In brief on application for rehearing counsel states:
“Without waiving his application and motion for a rehearing on the grounds hereinabove argued, and upon all grounds raised in appellant’s original brief and oral argument, appellant respectfully requests the court, in the event this application for a rehearing is overruled, to extend the opinion by adding the following which, in the opinion of appellant’s counsel, will present the picture more clearly to the Supreme Court:
“The accident occurred at a place not within the limits of any municipality.
“The photographs offered in evidence by the State showed that the motorscooter was painted a dark color, either black or dark blue.
“The defendant’s witness Will Bonham testified, among other things, as follows:
“I asked the defendant what happened and he said, T don’t know. I hit something or the other car hit me one or the other. Something hit.’ He was walking back looking to see what he hit. The defendant’s car was a different car from the one I had seen go toward Birmingham.
“Defendant’s witne'ss, Willie D. Gaster, testified, among other things, as follows:
“When I first heard the noise the car that was passing us was right in front, just passing. The car going toward Birmingham was going fast. I believe it had bright lights. I didn’t see any other lights. I wa's looking ahead. I didn’t see the gentleman on the motorscooter there in the road.
“Defendant’s witness, Nina Mason, among other things, testified as follows:
“I noticed a oar coming from behind me with such high speed, going up to Birmingham. I got off the road to keep the car from passing me on the bridge, it was coming so fast. When I got back on the road a piece and there was a little rise in the road, and I saw one dim light. Just behind this dim light was two bright lights, and the dim light was flickering like that (indicating) and I thought there was another automobile with one light. By that time this car that passed me struck this one light that I saw, and I 'saw it flame up or blow up or something. I couldn’t say what happened. I just heard the noise. The one dim light and the two lights that were facing me were facing toward Bessemer, and I was going up toward Birmingham. The car that passed me wa's going toward Birmingham and was the one that hit this one light. The one light was in front of the two bright lights.
“When this car passed me, it struck the dim light and just in a mere second it all went up in smoke. I couldn’t tell how far this other oar was behind the dim light. The first car struck the dim light. The dim light that was flickering was almost in the center of the road. The car going from Bessemer toward Birmingham was more to the center of the road. At the time I saw the car that was going toward Birmingham hit this flickering light, the car that was coming toward Bessemer was just a few feet behind the dim light. I heard two crashes. I saw this first car hit the dim *126 light, then I heard it. A mere second or something and it went up, and I heard the crash. From the time I heard the car going toward Birmingham hit it, and saw the blaze and flash, until I heard the second lick, it was about two minutes, I guess, or a minute and a half, and then I heard the other cra’sh and the scraping.
“The one coming to Bessemer was over on its right lane of travel, which would have bear on my left, and the one going to Birmingham was more in the center line. The motorscooter was not exactly in the center but it was on the left of the center line.
“Defendant’s witness, Elizabeth Davis, testified, among other things, as follows:
“Mr. Fox was out there on the motorcycle or motorbike. Something must have been wrong with it because he was trying to get it started. He was right in front of my door. He was on his side of the road but mostly about the yellow line, close to the yellow line, about, six inches from the yellow line. I didn’t see no light on the motorscooter. I was on the side of it and I couldn’t see the light. About that time the car coming from Bessemer hit him and knocked him from in front of my house up a little closer by the yellow line, and at that time another car hit him; two licks together, and then a cloud of smoke. The car that hit him the second time was the one coming from Birmingham, but the first lick was hit by the car coming from Bessemer. I was looking right at it.
“There were two licks. The two cars did not hit. The car coming from Bessemer hit him. I saw -it. I heard him holler three times. He was standing in the road with a car behind him. He saw the car coming in front of ¡him and he hollered three times. That was the car that hit him. He was knocked up in the road and that was where this other car hit him coming down the road.
“The appellant, Nathaniel Gills, testified, among other things, as follows:
“I did not see Mr. Fox or anyone else on a motorscooter or anything in front of me before the wreck. The only light I saw facing me were the two bright lights on the car I passed.”
We have no hesitancy in extending our original opinion so that it will include the above additional tendencies of the evidence.
Our further consideration of the record in the case does not convince us that we should depart from our original view.
The application for rehearing is therefore overruled.