51 S.W.2d 499 | Tenn. | 1932
A review of the testimony shows that the defendant's car was moving around thirty to thirty-five miles an hour, not a negligently high rate of speed under modern conditions, along a concrete highway, with an apparently clear track ahead. The only testimony indicating high speed is that skid marks were made for some distance when the brakes were applied, and the statement of a witness that the Ford was doing its best at a point where it passed him beyond a hill, about two hundred yards distant from the accident.
As said in Copeland v. State,
The collision occurred in August, 1930, more than a year after the passage of the motor vehicle act of 1929, which was generally taken to have repealed the former law fixing a speed limit of thirty miles an hour. While this Act was later held unconstitutional, we agree with the Attorney-General that criminal liability may not justly be predicated on the theory that the subsequently determined unconstitutionality of his Act rendered it so null and void ab initio as that the defendant, if driving however slightly above thirty miles an hour when the collision took place, was guilty of criminal negligence.
In Beaver v. State,
Finding no sufficient evidence of criminal negligence on the part of plaintiff in error, the judgment must be reversed. *445