GEORGE CLAYTON JONES, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
George Clayton Jones appeals his convictions for five counts of DUI manslaughter and one count of DUI resulting in serious injury after causing a multi-vehicle collision at high speed. The Fifth District Court of Appeal affirms, rejecting Jones's arguments regarding his phantom vehicle defense, expert testimony, blood alcohol evidence, and jury instructions on causation.
The trial court properly denied Jones's motion for acquittal because the jury was entitled to reject his version of events; the trooper was qualified as an accident reconstruction expert; blood alcohol evidence was properly admitted; and the jury instruction, supplemented with language from Magaw v. State requiring that the defendant's negligence play a role in the accident, adequately informed the jury and did not impose strict liability.
[1] A jury is within its province to determine the reasonableness and truthfulness of facts presented by witnesses.
[2] A witness may be qualified as an expert in accident reconstruction based on specialized training, experience, and involvement in numerous investigations.
Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“It was within the province of the jury to sift through the testimony and determine the reasonableness and truthfulness of the facts conveyed by each of the witnesses.”
Establishes that the jury properly rejected Jones's phantom vehicle defense and that appellate courts defer to jury credibility determinations.
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceJones was driving at 80-100 mph when he swerved into the opposite lane of traffic, striking two oncoming vehicles, which then collided with a fourth v…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Substantial Compliance With Rules cases and more on FLexlaw
PETERSON, Judge.
George Clayton Jones appeals his convictions and sentences for five counts of DUI manslaughter and one count of DUI resulting in a serious injury. We affirm.
At Clayton’s trial, a Florida highway patrol trooper opined that Jones was driving his vehicle at speeds of 80 to 100 miles per hour when Jones swerved into the opposite lane of traffic and hit two oncoming cars, one of which then collided with a fourth vehicle. In this appeal, Jones argues his judgment for acquittal should have been granted because the state failed to refute his hypothesis of innocence. Jones also asserts that it was error to allow the trooper to testify as an accident reconstruction expert. He further asserts that it was error to allow the jury to consider the medical and legal reports of blood alcohol levels, and that the jury instruction on causation erroneously imposed strict liability for the DUI manslaughter charges.
Appellant’s only explanation at trial for swerving into the opposite lane of traffic which caused the five deaths in this accident was that a person in a phantom vehicle kept taunting him and that after the vehicle passed him, he tried to approach to a position that would enable him to read the tag number on the vehicle. As he approached, the vehicle braked, causing the appellant to veer left in order to avoid a collision. By veering left, appellant set in motion the chain of action leading to the multiple deaths. The jury clearly did not believe appellant’s version of the accident, nor his version of his consumption of alcohol preceding the accident. It was within the province of the jury to sift through the testimony and determine the reasonableness and truthfulness of the facts conveyed by each of the witnesses. Jent v. State, 408 So. 2d 1024 (Fla.), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1111, 102 S.Ct. 2916, 73 L.Ed.2d 1322 (1982). The trial court properly denied appellant’s motion for acquittal.
The trial court recognized Corporal Conklin of the Florida Highway Patrol as an expert in the field of accident reconstruction. In addition to completing a 40-hour course and an 80-hour course in homicide investigations, which included calculations of speed and angles of trajectory, he completed additional courses in crash investigation in 1990 and 1991, including a course which certified him in advanced traffic accident investigation, the most advanced course offered, for police officers in the area of accident investigations. In this latter course, the trooper was exposed to additional calculations of mathematical formulas. Additionally the trooper had been involved in the investigation of 72 homicide and 4,510 traffic crashes. We agree with the trial court that the trooper was qualified as an expert to reconstruct the accident.
The trial court also did not err in allowing the jury to consider the blood alcohol reports as evidence of appellant’s intoxication. We find, as the trial court did, that drawing the blood sample was accomplished in substantial compliance with HRS rules governing collection and testing, Robertson v. State, 604 So. 2d 783 (Fla.1992), and that the jury was entitled to determine from the evidence whether the blood drawn for legal and medical purposes was that of the appellant.
As to appellant’s final contention, that the DUI manslaughter instruction improperly imposed strict liability, we note that the trial court supplemented the standard instruction by instructing the jury with the following language paraphrased from Magaw v. State, 537 So. 2d 564, 567 (Fla.1989):
The law does not require that the operator of a vehicle must be the sole cause of the fatal accident. The state is not required to prove that the operator’s drinking caused the accident, only that the operation of the vehicle should have caused the accident. Therefore, any deviation or lack of care on the part of the driver under the influence to which the fatal accident can be attributed is sufficient.
We find this instruction, combined with the standard one, adequately informed the jury that the state had to show that negligence on the part of the appellant played a role in the accident. Magaw; Melvin v. State, 677 So. 2d 1317 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996).
Competent sufficient evidence of appellant’s guilt having been otherwise presented beyond a reasonable doubt, we affirm appellant’s convictions and sentences.
AFFIRMED.
GOSHORN, J., concurs.
DAUKSCH, J., concurs in conclusion only.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
State v. Van Hubbard, 751 So. 2d 552 (Fla. 1999)…affected to the extent that the person’s normal faculties are impaired” versus the former "his normal faculties.” . See, e.g., Foster v. State, 603 So. 2d 1312 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992); Kurtz v. State, 564 So. 2d 519 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990); Jones v. State, 698 So. 2d 1280 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997). . The requested modification to part 2 of the standard DUI manslaughter jury instruction read: 2. (Defendant), by reason of such operation, caused a collision by deviation or lack of care, which was a cause of the death of (vi…
-
van Hubbard v. State, 748 So. 2d 288 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998)…ave concluded that under Magaw, [*290] simple negligence is an element of the crime. See Foster v. State, 603 So. 2d 1312 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992), review denied, 613 So. 2d 4 (Fla.1993); Kurtz v. State, 564 So. 2d 519 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990); Jones v. State, 698 So. 2d 1280 (Fla. 5th DCA), review denied, 703 So. 2d 476 (Fla.1997). An instruction requiring “deviation or lack of care” was given in Naumowicz v. State, although the court did not comment on the correctness of the instruction. 562 So. 2d 710, 712 (Fla. 1st D…
-
MacPHERSON v. State, 745 So. 2d 1048 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999)…PER CURIAM. AFFIRMED. See Jones v. State, 698 So. 2d 1280 (Fla. 5th DCA), rev. denied, 703 So. 2d 476 (Fla.1997). DAUKSCH and COBB, JJ. and JACOBUS, B., Associate Judge, concur.…
Authorities Cited
- Jent v. State, 408 So. 2d 1024 (Fla. 1981)
- Robertson v. State, 604 So. 2d 783 (Fla. 1992)
- Brown v. Fed. Election Comm'n, 457 U.S. 1111 (U.S. 1982)
- Oregon v. Newman, 457 U.S. 1111 (U.S. 1982)
- Magaw v. State, 537 So. 2d 564 (Fla. 1989)
- Melvin v. State, 677 So. 2d 1317 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996)