12 S.E.2d 879 | Ga. | 1941
The evidence was not sufficient to support the verdict of murder. The judge erred in refusing to grant a new trial.
The evidence discloses that the accused, while driving an automobile on the public highway "at a fast rate of speed," collided near the brow of a hill with another automobile driven by the person who was killed in the collision. The accused in his statement to the jury contended that he met the Jones car as he rounded the curve "on my side of the road." The charge of the court is not brought up in the record, and therefore we do not know upon *462
what issues the case was submitted to the jury. We assume it was upon the suggestion that in the commission of the act the accused was at the time violating some provision of the law in reference to the operation of motor vehicles, because there is no proof of any malice or intention to kill. But when the evidence is examined we do not find anything that would authorize the inference that the killing happened in the commission by the accused of any unlawful act naturally tending to destroy the life of a human being. In the view we take of the evidence it is totally wanting in anything that would show such wanton disregard of human life as would authorize the jury to imply malice or an actual intention to kill. This court, in Butler v. State,
As the judgment refusing a new trial is reversed, we make no ruling on the ground relating to newly discovered evidence.
Judgment reversed. All the Justices concur.