People v. Huber

PLUMMER, J.

The defendant was convicted of violating the provisions of section 21 of the Motor Vehicle Act approved May 10, 1915 (Stats. 1915, p. 397), and prosecutes this appeal therefrom. It appears from the transcript that along about 7 o’clock on the evening of the 23d of December, 1922, the defendant was driving a Ford automobile on one of the roads leading from the town of Susanville; that as he neared a small place called Plalltown his car collided with and knocked down a man by the name of Steve Begley. Said Steve Begley and his son, Deryl Begley were walking along the highway toward their home; Deryl stepped to one side and the car passed him without doing any injury. The responsibility for the collision or injury has no place in this case. After knocking down Begley, the defendant continued on his course for some little distance; just how far the evidence does not clearly establish, the testimony being, according to various witnesses, from seventy feet to two hundred yards. After stopping his machine the defendant merely looked back and then drove on. There is no dispute in the testimony upon this point. The defendant did not take the witness-stand upon the trial of this case but at the coroner’s inquest he did give his version of the incident and this version was introduced in evidence by the district attorney and is substantially as follows: I had been out hunting, came back to town, had supper, went to a bakery-shop, I drove around town a few minutes, took my car and started to go home, there were lots of cars going with bright lights that were blinding my eyes. I tried to speed along up a little hill and bang, I never saw that man before. I thought the machine had passed. I got out and drove for about two hundred yards and stopped and saw nobody. The windshield was broken and I thought I had hit a man and drove over and around by the butcher-shop to Emigs. Mr. Good-fellow came in and asked me where I hit a man and I said I did not hit a man. I was down there with another fellow at the cabin and he said, “Joe, it is better that you go over there and report it,” and I walked in the house and took a

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drink. I was so excited myself and thought I had hurt a man a little. Then I took a drink and the sheriff came in and wanted to take the

bottle

out of my pocket. Whether the defendant had been drinking prior to the collision does not appear from the testimony. Suffice it to say that he was not prosecuted under any provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act than those contained in section 21, hereinbefore referred to. Upon arraignment defendant interposed a demurrer setting forth eight different grounds why it should be sustained, the principal ones being that the information does not conform to the requirements of sections 950 and 952 of the Penal Code. The charging part of the information, after giving date and place, reads as follows: