Portis v. StatePortis v. State
Thе defendant was indicted for the murder of John Henry Coates. A jury found him guilty of manslaughter. Alabama Code 1975, Section 13A-6-3 (Amended 1977). Sentence was five years’ imprisonment.
The only issue in this case is whether Mr. Coates’ death was caused by the gunshot wound inflicted upon him by the defendant.
On the 28th of January, 1981, the defendant shot Coates in the abdomen with a .32 caliber pistol. Coates died on March 7th.
This case would have tо be reversed except for the testimony of Dr. Leroy Red-dick, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Mr. Coates. Dr. Reddick stated that the “immediate cause” or the “mechanism” of Coates’ death was thromboemboli, or blood сlots, which formed in the victim’s legs, traveled through his heart and lodged in his lungs, blocking any blood to the lungs. Dr. Red-dick also testified as to the “proximаte cause” of death.
“The proximate cause of death, in medical-legal terms, is the underlying disease or injury. Again, it’s the underlying disease or injury- that starts a series of changes in the body which, over a period of time, ultimately leads to somebody’s death. It is what is the initial insult, the initial injury. Proximate means first. It’s the first injury or insult that starts the body to change so that, ultimately, cha,nges take place that you can’t live with.”
In the opinion of Dr. Reddick, the proximate cause of Mr. Coates’ death was “the gunshot wound to the abdomen.”
“So the initial evеnt that sent him on a downhill course to this was the gunshot wound. And then another event was the surgery which was lifesaving. And then, as he was recuperating, his body was geared to defending himself against bleeding. He had excess or increased clotting factors. Also, lying around recuperating, he developed some blood clots. They break away and he dies within six weeks of the gunshot wound.”
Mrs. Coates testified that, aftеr her husband was released from the hospital, his condition “kept getting worse and worse every day. Worse and worse.”
The defendant relies upon Welch v. State,
This case is similar to Welch in that a blood clot, caused in part by inactivity, dislodged from the victim’s leg and lodged in the lung (see Judgе Price’s dissent;
“Where, . . . the wound inflicted by defendant upon the victim is dangerous to life, the fact that there are other contributing causes of death does not рrevent such a wound from being the legal cause of death. It does not have to be the sole cause.” Smith v. State,
The State is not required to dispel every possible dоubt or to show that some other conceivable cause of death did not cause death. “ ‘(T)he test of responsibility is whether the act of accused contributed to the death, and, if it did, he is not relieved of responsibility by the fact that other causes also contributed.’ 40 C.J.S. Criminal Law Section 11 (1944).” Flanagan v. State,
Here, there was testimony that death was not due solely and exclusively to natural cause, i.e. heart failure, with the injury in no way contributing to or accelerating death. Compare Duncan v. State,
Here, as in Wiggins v. State,
“The differеnce between the two cases, in the evidence as to the cause of death, is more pronounced than any similarity. According to the majority opinion in Welch, the closest the evidence came to showing that the gunshot wound was the cause of death was the testimony of a physician that the blood clot that caused death was ‘probably associated’ with the gunshot wound.” Wiggins,354 So.2d at 341-42 .
The dеfendant argues that there was testimony from another doctor, who did not perform the autopsy, that there was no reason why Mr. Coates should not have had a complete recovery following his discharge from the hospital.
Dr. James Prescott operated on Mr. Coates following the injury. He testified
Dr. Jack L. Dozier was Mr. Coates’ regular physician. He testified that the gunshot wound had a “debilitating effect” on Mr. Coates’ health but could not state whether his health deteriorated at the time sоlely because of the gunshot wound or “whether it was secondary to something else.”
Dr. Reddick, whose opinions we have already reported, was the only doctor who performed an autopsy on Mr. Coates. His opinions were not diminished by the testimony of thе other doctors.
This medical evidence presented a question for the jury as to the cause of and reason of Mr. Coаtes’ death. The jurors were not bound by the opinion or opinions of the medical witnesses presented by the State, but were freе to determine the weight to which each was entitled and to disregard some or all of them if they found any or all unreasonable. Cobb v. State,
The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.