Hanceville Mayor Kenneth Nail and former officer Billy Clemons, right, walk from the Cullman County circuit courtroom February 23 2016 during a recess for lunch. The estate of the late Annie May Butts is suing Clemons and the City of Hanceville for the February 2009 wreck that killed Butts on Alabama 91.

A trial is underway in the wrongful death lawsuit against a former Hanceville police officer and the city for a fatal crash that killed a 77-year-old woman in 2009.

The estate of the late Annie Mae Butts filed suit against officer Billy Roy Clemons and the City Hanceville in May 2009. A jury will decide whether or not the defendants should be held responsible for her death. Cullman County Circuit Judge Martha Williams is presiding over the trial.

Butts was killed February 16, 2009, when a patrol vehicle driven by Clemons slammed into the passenger side of her car as she turned onto Alabama 91 from Edmondson Road. Clemons was traveling approximately 85 mph as the time of the wreck without blue lights or sirens. The posted speed limit it 45 mph.

Clemons was responding to an erratic driver call along with former Hanceville police Sgt. Danny Robertson when the collision occurred. Butts’ son, Randy Carlton Butts Brown, filed the lawsuit as the administrator of his mother’s estate. However, her sister, Rachael Franks, has since been designated the administrator.

A Cullman County grand jury decided in July 2009 to not to bring criminal charges against Clemons for the wreck.

“This accident wouldn’t have happened had Ms. Butts yielded the right of way,” Timothy Donahue, Clemons’ attorney, told the jury Tuesday. “He had no knowledge he would go out that night and have a wreck that killed Ms. Butts. There is no evidence of that.”

On Tuesday, the jury watched the dash camera video from Clemons’ patrol car as it left the police department, headed north on U.S. 31 and then turned onto northbound Highway 91.

The footage shows Clemons turn on his blue lights as he turned on Highway 91 but then turned them off. The video shows the collision and immediate aftermath where Clemons can be heard alerting dispatch he’s been involved in a wreck and needs an ambulance.

Robertson was ahead of him in his patrol car, searching for the suspect vehicle. Donahue said Hanceville police dispatcher Sandra Blackwood happened to be traveling in a car behind Butts on Edmondson Road, on her way home with her children, when the wreck occurred and remarked how slowly Butts was driving.

Crash reconstruction engineer Michael McCort was a witness for both the plaintiff and the defendants and provided expert testimony about the dynamics of the crash.

Testimony in the trial is expected to continue Wednesday.

Butts was employed as a clerk at Wal-Mart in Cullman and had retired as manager of the Super 10 Store in Blountsville.