People v. Vasquez

BURROUGHS, J.,

pro tem.

The defendant was charged by information with the crime of assault with a deadly weapon' or instrument and by means and force likely to produce great bodily injury, and in a second count thereof, • with involuntary manslaughter, both alleged offenses . growing out of the same transaction. The defendant entered a plea of “not guilty” on each count, the cause was tried and the jury returned a verdict of “not guilty” on each one of the felony charges, but found the defendant guilty of assault. The court sentenced him to pay a fine of five hundred dollars and to imprisonment in the county jail of Stanislaus County for the term of six months, and from this judgment defendant appeals.

[577]

Appellant contends that there is no evidence to sustain the verdict of guilty of assault because there was no intent shown to commit the offense.

The facts are as follows: About 9 o’clock on the evening of July 30, 1926, the defendant was driving a motor-ear on a public highway of Stanislaus County. He was driving on the right-hand side of the road, but without headlights, and the evidence discloses that it was a dark night. About five hundred feet west of the city limits of Modesto his ear struck some object and he stopped his ear and got out to investigate. About two hundred and twenty-five feet west from where the defendant stopped his car several state traffic officers were testing headlights. They heard the impact of the car against the object it had struck and immediately ran to the scene and by the aid of flashlights discovered there was a man under the car. They immediately lifted the car from him and carried him to the side of the road. He was bleeding from a cut on the head and was unconscious. He was recognized by one of the traffic officers as one Clarence Knowles. While the officers were endeavoring to render aid to Knowles, another automobile approached them from the west, traveling at a high rate of speed, and before the officers could move the unconscious man from its path it struck him and dragged him about thirteen feet and when the officers again reached him he died before they could pick him up or render any assistance.

Defendant testified that his lights had gone out about three-quarters of an hour before he hit Knowles and that he had tried to fix them, but was unable to do so, and he thereupon resumed driving and was proceeding at the rate of about eight or ten miles an hour when his car struck Knowles.