Acers v. United States

• Citation: 164 U.S. 388,41 L.Ed. 481,17 S.Ct. 91
• Decision Date: 30 November 1896
• Docket Number: No. 393,393
• Parties: ACERS v. UNITED STATES
• Court: United States Supreme Court

164 U.S. 388

17 S.Ct. 91

41 L.Ed. 481

ACERS

v UNITED STATES.

No. 393.

November 30, 1896.

A. H. Garland and R. C. Garland, for plaintiff in error.

Asst. Atty. Gen. Dickinson, for the United States.

Mr. Justice BREWER delivered the opinion of the court.

Plaintiff in error was convicted in the district court for the Western district of Arkansas of an assault with intent to kill, and sentenced to the penitentiary for the term of two years and six months. The undisputed facts were these: Defendant and one Joseph M. Owens had some dispute about business affairs, and, on returning together to the house where they were both stopping, defendant picked up a stone about three inches wide, nine inches long, and an inch and a half or two inches thick, and with it struck Owens on the side of the head, fracturing the skull. The defense was that there was no intent to kill; that defendant acted in self-defense; that, believing Owens was about to draw a pistol, he picked up the stone, and pushed him down. And the disputed matters were whether Owens had a pistol, and, if so, whether he attempted to draw it, or made any motions suggestive of such a purpose. The verdict of the jury was adverse to the contentions of the defendant.

The only questions presented for our consideration arise on the charge of the court, and may be grouped under four heads: First, as to the evidences of intent; second, as to what constitutes a deadly weapon; third, as to real danger; and, fourth, as to apparent danger. It may be premised that the exceptions to this charge are taken in the careless way which prevails in the Western district of Arkansas; but, passing this, and considering the charge as properly excepted to, we find in it no substantial error.

First. With reference to the charge as to the matter of intent, counsel for plaintiff in error challenge a single sentence, as follows: 'But you need not go to a thing of that kind, because the law says you may take the act itself as done, and from it you may find that it was willfully done.' But this sentence is to be taken, not by itself alone, but in connection with many others, in order to determine what the court instructed as to the evidences of intent. It distinguished between the assault and the intent to kill, and charged specifically that each must be proved, that the intent could only be found from the circumstances of the transaction, and, after suggestion that the declarations made by a party at the time of an assault would tend to show the intent with which it was committed, added the sentence which counsel have quoted. Nowhere, not even in the sentence quoted, was it said that the assault, of itself, necessarily proved the intent, but all through the charge in this respect was the constant declaration that the intent was to be deduced from all the circumstances of the case, the court pointing out many things which tended to disclose the real intent of a party, summing up the matter with these observations: 'That is the way you find intent, then, bearing in mind that he is held to have intended whatever consequences might have followed from the act as willfully done by him with the deadly weapon. You, in other words, to find intent, take the circumstances. You take the character of the act done, the manner in which it was executed, the weapon used in executing it, the part of the body upon which it was executed, the very result produced by that act upon that vital part of the body known as the head. These are all circumstances that it is your duty to take into consideration to find whether the party intended to kill him or not.' There is nothing objectionable in this.

Second. With respect to a deadly weapon, the court defined it as 'a weapon with which death may be easily and readily produced; anything, no matter what it is, whether it is made for the purpose of destroying animal life, or whether it was not made by...