People v. Fodera

LENNON, P. J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction of the defendant upon the charge of a violation of section 367c of the Penal Code, requiring drivers of automobiles colliding with other vehicles to stop and render a~sistance to the occupants of the vehicle collided with and who may have been injured by such collision, under penalties which render the act or neglect of such drivers in failing of refusing to comply with such requirements a felony.

The facts of this case immediately preceding, attending, and succeeding the collision are substantially these: On the evening of October 31, 1915, a little after sunset, the defendant was proceeding northward along the state highway near the town of Mayfield, in the county of Santa Clara, on Ms way home to San Francisco from Coyote, in that county, to which place he had made the trip earlier in the day. There were four companions with the defendant in the car, which

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he was driving at a rate estimated as exceeding forty miles an hour. A closed limousine, in which two ladies—Mrs. Carolan and Miss Shute—were being driven by a chauffeur, was also proceeding northward along the highway at that point at about twenty-five miles an hour. The defendant undertook to pass the limousine, swerving to the left in order to do so. At the moment of passing a tandem motorcycle, driven by one Hector Zapata with one Joseph Ottens as his companion, two young students of the university of Santa Clara, were going southward at the rate of eighteen to twenty miles an hour, and were also about to pass said limousine, when a'collision occurred between the defendant’s machine and said motorcycle, in which Zapata was instantly killed and Ottens severely injured. The defendant did not stop or check his speed, but rather increased it until he was overtaken at May-field by the Carolan car, when the chauffeur called to the defendant to stop. There is also some evidence that the chauffeur, who spoke English imperfectly, made some remark to the defendant to the effect that he had killed somebody. The defendant stopped momentarily, but did not return to the scene of the collision, but continued rapidly on his way to San Francisco, until he was finally halted by the officers at Burlingame. He insisted at all times that he did not know of the collision at the time of its occurrence, and in this he was supported by the testimony of the four other persons who were occupants of the car. The evidence educed at the trial disclosed, however, that the impact of the collision was distinctly heard by the two ladies who were within the closed limousine, and also by a Mr. Van Gordon, who was' sitting upon the porch of his residence a hundred yards away from the scene of the collision. It also appeared that the body of Zapata had been carried along by the defendant’s car for a distance of from forty-five to sixty feet before falling from it to the roadside; while from the exhibits produced at the trial and exhibited to this court upon the oral argument of this appeal, consisting of photographs of the defendant’s car, and also of articles of clothing worn by one of the occupants thereof sitting on the side nearest to the point of contact, it appeared that the fenders and tool-box of the defendant’s car had been bent and indented by the impact, while the sides of the machine and the coat of its said occupant were bespattered with the blood and brains of Zapata.