Hopt v. People

• Decision Date: 01 October 1881
• Parties: HOPT v. PEOPLE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

104 U.S. 631

104 U.S. 631

26 L.Ed. 873

HOPT v. PEOPLE.

October Term, 1881

ERROR to the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. John R. McBride and Mr. J. G. Sutherland for the plaintiff in error.

The Solicitor-General, contra.

MR. JUSTICE GRAY delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff in error was indicted, convicted, and sentenced for the crime of murder in the first degree in the District Court of the Third Judicial District of the Territory of Utah, and presented a bill of exceptions, which was allowed by the presiding judge, and from his judgment and sentence appealed to the Supreme Court of the Territory, and that court having affirmed and judgment and sentence, he sued out a writ of error from this court. Of the various errors assigned, we have found it necessary to consider two only.

The Penal Code of Utah contains the following provisions: 'Every murder perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of wilful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, rape, burglary, or robbery; or perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any other human being, other thah him who is killed; or perpetrated by any act greatly dangerous to the lives of others, and evidencing a depraved mind regardless of human life,—is murder in the first degree; and any other homicide, committed under such circumstances as would have constituted murder at common law, is murder in the second degree.' Sect. 89. 'Every person guilty of murder in the first degree shall suffer death, or, upon the recommendation of the jury, may be imprisoned at hard labor in the penitentiary for life, at the discretion of the court; and every person guilty of murder in the second degree shall be imprisoned at hard labor in the penitentiary for not less than five nor more than fifteen years.' Sect. 90. Compiled Laws of Utah of 1876, pp. 585, 586.

By the Utah Code of Criminal Procedure, the charge of the judge to the jury at the trial 'must be reduced to writing before it is given, unless by the mutual consent of the parties it is given orally' (sect. 257, cl. 7); the jury, upon retiring for deliberation, may take with them the written instructions given (sect. 289); and 'when written charges have been presented, given, or refused, the questions presented in such charges need not be excepted to or embodied in a bill of exceptions, but the written charges or the report, with the indorsements showing the action of the court, form part of the record, and any error in the decision of the court thereon may be taken advantage of on appeal, in like manner as if presented in a bill of exceptions.' Sect. 315. Laws of Utah of 1878, pp. 115, 121, 126.

It appears by the bill of exceptions that evidence was introduced at the trial tending to show that the defendant was intoxicated at the time of the alleged homicide.

The defendant's fifth request for instructions, which was indorsed 'refused' by the judge, was as follows: 'Drunkenness is not an excuse for crime; but as n all cases where a jury find a defendant guilty of murder they have to determine the degree of crime, it becomes necessary for them to inquire as to the state of mind under which he acted, and in the prosecution of such an inquiry his condition as drunk of sober is proper to be considered, where the homicide is not committed by means of poison, lying in wait, or torture, or in the perpetration of or attempt to perpetrate arson, rape, robbery, or burglary. The degree of the offence depends entirely upon the question whether the killing was wilful, deliberate, and premediated; and upon that question it is proper for the jury to consider evidence of intoxication, if such there be; not upon the ground that drunkenness renders a criminal act less criminal, or can be received in extenuation or excuse, but upon the ground that the condition of the defendant's mind at the time the act was committed must be inquired after, in order to justly determine the question as to whether his mind was capable of that deliberation or premediation which, according as they are absent or present, determine the degree of the crime.'

Upon this subject the judge gave only the following written instruction; 'A man who voluntarily puts himself in a condition to have no control of his actions must be held to intend the consequences. The safety of the community requires this rule. Intoxication is so easily counterfeited, and when real is so often resorted to as a means of nerving a person up to the commission of some desperate act, and is withal so inexcusable in itself, that law has never recognized it as an excuse for crime.'

The instruction requested and refused, and the instruction given, being matter of record and subjects of appeal under the provision of the Utah Code of Criminal Procedure, sect. 315, above quoted, their correctness is clearly open to consideration in this court. Young v. Martin, 8 Wall. 354.

At common law, indeed, as a general rule, voluntary intoxication affords no excuse, justification, or extenuation of a crime committed under its...