Appellant appeals from his conviction of homicide by vehicle in the first degree, Code Ann. § 68A-903 (a).
1. Appellant enumerates as error the denial of his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal premised upon the state’s alleged failure to produce evidence that the victim died as the result of any wrongful acts on the part of appellant. The evidence adduced at trial authorized the following findings: Appellant, while intoxicated, was operating his vehicle in a westerly direction on the eastbound lane of a divided interstate highway. Appellant’s vehicle struck the automobile in which the victim was a passenger head-on. The victim’s fiance, who was driving the car, testified that she last saw him alive “[j]ust prior to the wreck.” The emergency medical technician who was called to the wreck found that the victim had been pinned behind the dashboard and “had extensive head and chest injuries” and compound fractures of the arms and legs. It was the medical technician’s expert opinion that those injuries had been suffered as the result of the collision and that the victim was dead at the scene. It is appellant’s contention that this evidence is insufficient to establish the corpus delicti because there was no
specific
testimony that the victim’s death at the scene was the proximate result of the “extensive” injuries he had suffered in the head-on collision with appellant’s automobile. Appellant argues that the evidence showed only that there had been a collision, that the victim suffered injuries in the collision, and that the victim was dead. The evidence clearly established that the victim was living immediately prior to the collision and was dead immediately afterward, having suffered “extensive” head and chest injuries as the result of the wreck. The mere fact that there was no specific testimony that the “extensive” injuries suffered in the collision were the proximate cause of the victim’s death “would not prevent the jury, after hearing a description of the wound which had been inflicted, from determining for themselves whether or not the wound was the cause of death; and if the jury decided that the wound was a cause sufficient to produce the death, and no other cause was shown to have existed, there was sufficient basis for the conclusion that death resulted from the wound rather than from some other cause, the existence of which there was not the slightest evidence to establish.”
Long v. State,
60 Ga. App.
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517, 519 (
2. Appellant asserts that evidence concerning the level of alcohol in his blood was erroneously admitted into evidence over his objection that to admit such evidence in the case would result in an unconstitutional application of Code Ann. § 68A-902.1. Apparently at the time appellant was “advised” of his rights under Code Ann. § 68A-902.1 by the officer investigating the collision, appellant was unconscious. A blood sample was then taken from the unconscious appellant. It is appellant’s contention that the implied consent law may not be constitutionally applied to an unconscious driver and that evidence relative to this blood sample, taken while he was unconscious, was therefore erroneously admitted. This same argument was considered and rejected in
Smith v. State,
3. Error is enumerated upon the trial court’s refusal to give the following charge: “ [ W] here any chemical tests of bodily fluid is made, the person tested may have a physician, or a qualified technician, chemist, registered nurse or other qualified person of his own choosing administer a chemical test or tests in addition to any administered at the direction of a law enforcement officer. The arresting officer at the time of arrest shall advise the person arrested of his rights to a chemical test or tests according to our law.” We find no error in the refusal to give this request. Code Ann. § 68A-902.1 (a), from which the requested charge was taken, deals with the admissibility of chemical tests. The question of the admissibility of
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evidence is a question for the trial court not the jury. See generally
Hotchkiss v. Newton,
4. Appellant enumerates as error the failure of the trial court to give a requested charge on the “lesser included offense” of vehicular homicide in the second degree, Code Ann. § 68A-903 (b). Assuming without deciding that Code Ann. § 68A-903 (b) may in certain circumstances be a lesser included offense of Code Ann. § 68A-903 (a), the evidence in the instant case did not “reasonably” raise the issue that the victim’s death was caused by any violation of the Uniform Rules of the Road other than appellant’s driving under the influence. The state’s uncontroverted evidence clearly showed appellant was in violation of Code Ann. § 68A-902, driving under the influence, at the time of the collision. Appellant offered no evidence whatsoever. Thus, there is not the “slightest suggestion” in the evidence that the victim’s death in the collision was caused by any violation other than appellant’s driving under the influence, pretermitting any other traffic violations that appellant
may
have been in violation of in his drunken state. Under this posture of the evidence there were only two possible verdicts, guilty as charged of first degree vehicular homicide or a complete acquittal. Accordingly it was not error to refuse appellant’s written requests to charge.
Quick v. State,
5. The trial court did not err in admitting testimony concerning information related to a police officer, where the testimony was admitted for the purpose of explaining the officer’s conduct. Code Ann. § 38-306.
Mooney v. State,
Judgment affirmed.