Lee v. State

Appellant, Carl George Lee, was convicted of negligent homicide and appeals from that conviction. The accident from which this arose occurred early in the morning on July 5, 1974, on North Main Street in Sheridan. That street has a concrete median - Page 218 in the center, with two traffic lanes on each side, and is approximately 28 feet wide, being divided into two lanes by a colored stripe. This accident involved a collision of the car driven by appellant with one driven by Glen Bennick while both were traveling in a southerly direction and on the west side of the median. Bennick was driving in the left lane next to the median strip and Lees car was back of the Bennick car in the right-hand lane. The occupants of the Bennick car heard the Lee car accelerate and immediately thereafter the Lee car struck Bennicks car in the right rear quarter of the panel. After the collision the Bennick vehicle crossed the right-hand lane of the highway and went off the street on the west side. The Lee car crossed over the left lane of the street and across the median and went off on the east side of the road where it struck a building and burst into flames. David Lawrence, a passenger in the Lee car, was injured and as a result died. It is the States theory, apparently accepted by the jury, that appellants car intruded into Bennicks lane and struck his car, causing the collision and death of the deceased.