Danforth v. The State Of Ga.

• Citation: 75 Ga. 614
• Parties: Danforth. vs. The State of Georgia.
• Decision Date: 31 October 1885
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

75 Ga. 614

Danforth. vs. The State of Georgia.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

OCTOBER TERM, 1885.

Criminal Law. Indictment. Practice in Superior Court. Pleadings. Constitutional Law. Insanity. Before Judge Simmons. Bibb Superior Court. April Term, 1885.

The facts of this case are sufficiently reported in the decision. The following extracts from the charge of the court below will show the manner in which the question of the defendant's sanity or insanity was submitted to the jury:

"This defendant says to the jury that he could not entertain malice in his mind at the time, by reason of his mind being so deranged, so disordered by disease, that ho did not have capacity enough to form that legal intention, to entertain malice such as I have described to you.

"Whenever the state proves a homicide by unauthorized violence, and the evidence which the state introduces does not show the want of malice, then the burden is cast upon the defendant. He assumes the burden, then, to prove that he had no malice. Now, unless the evidence of the state that proves the homicide shows that it wasdone without malice, then he assumes the burden to show to the jury that it was done without malice. In this case, he assumes [it], because he says he did not have capacity enough to entertain malice.

"Well, I charge you first upon that, that the law presumes every man sane until it is made to appear to the contrary that he is insane or unsound of mind; and if a man files that plea, the burden is on him to make it appear to the satisfaction of the jury. It ought to be made to appear to a reasonable certainty that, at the time of the commission of the act, he did not know the nature and quality of the act, or if he did know the nature of the act, that he did not know the act was wrong. A person, in order to be punishable by the law, must have sufficient memory, intelligence, reason and will to enable him to distinguish between right and wrong in regard to the particu-lar act about to be done—to know and understand that it would bo wrong, and that he will deserve punishment for committing it. If the prisoner is perfectly sane as to all other things, but lacks, as to the act about to be committed, reason enough to distinguish between the right and wrong of that act, and he does not know and understand that the act is wrong, and that he will deserve punishment for committing it, he is not responsible. He may be sane about everything else, but if he is insane about that particular act, and does not know that it is wrong, then he will not be responsible.

" On the other hand, a person may be deranged as to other things, yet if he has sufficient reason or mind to distinguish as to the right or wrong of that particular act about to be committed—if he knows and understands that for committing that act he would be liable to be punished—he is responsible.

"Therefore, you will look to the evidence in this case, and see, at the time this act was committed, whether the accused had sufficient mind or reason or mental capacity to know that the act was wrong; in other words, that it was a violation of the law, and he would be liable to be punished for it. If he did not, then he is not responsible to the law, and ought not to be, because the law does not allow an insane man to be convicted, or a man who has not sufficient capacity to have a criminal intent to be convicted. But if he did know, although he may have been insane or peculiar about other things, if he did know at the time he committed that act, and he had understanding and reason sufficient to know that it was a violation of the law, and that he would be punishable for it, then the jury would be authorized to find him guilty.

"Now there is an exception to that rule, which I will give you. You will remember that it was claimed by some of the counsel in the argument that the prisoner acted under an insane delusion, an irresistible impulse, and things of that sort. That is the exception I am going to give you to the rule I have just laid down between right and wrong. If you find, of course, that he did not know the differ-ence, and that he did not have capacity enough to know that he was doing wrong, you need not investigate this part of the charge. If you find that he did know what he was doing, and was violating the law, and had reason and capacity enough to know that he would be punished for it, then you may look to this.

" I charge you further that he is not responsible if the act was done under some irresistible impulse, the result of a diseased and disordered mind, which overpowered his will, taking away his power and control, and that there was no criminal intent;—I say, if all that happened, then he would not be responsible to the law; and the proviso with that is, that the act itself is connected with the peculiar delusion under which the prisoner was laboring, if he was laboring under such a delusion at that time.

" On the other hand, I charge you that if he was not laboring under such a delusion of an impulse that was irresistible, the result of a diseased and disordered mind which overpowered his will—if he was not laboring that way, but acted only from violent passions and resentments towards Landsberg, and upon real circumstances—no delusion about it—but upon real circumstances, and was impelled by no morbid delusion, but proceeded upon the ordinary perceptions of the mind—then he would be responsible, and you would be authorized to find him guilty. Now, do you understand that?..

" Well, now, gentlemen of the jury, if, after a full, fair and honest examination of this evidence, your minds are unsettled, unsatisfied, do not know what the truth about it is, then that is what is called a reasonable doubt in law, and you shall give him the benefit of that reasonable doubt and acquit him If your minds are legally certain, and you are satisfied from the evidence in this case that he is guilty, why, then, you would be authorize 1 to find him guilty."

R. S. Lanier; Hardeman & Davis'; S. H. Jemison; W. Dessau; C. L. Bartlett, for plaintiff in error.

Clifford Anderson, attorney general, by J. H. Lumpkin; J. L. Hardeman, solicitor general; Bacon & Ruth-krford, for the state.

Hall. Justice.

The prisoner was indicted, tried and found guilty of the murder of William Landsberg, and by the direction of the jury was sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life. Upon his arraignment, he filed two special pleas:

The first set forth that the indictment on which he was about to be arraigned was never returned into court by the grand jury, but was brought in by their bailiff and handed to the clerk, and that he, therefore, entered it on the minutes of the court, at which time none of the grand jurors were present, neither their foreman, nor a quorum of the body, nor any member thereof; and that these several facts appeared from the minutes of the court, and he, therefore, prayed that it be quashed. The other plea admitted that the defendant committed the homicide at the time and place stated in the indictment, but denied that he was guilty of murder as charged, or of any other offense against the laws of the state, because he was at that time insane.

The solicitor general demurred to both these pleas, and being deemed insufficient, the court gave judgment on the demurrer in favor of the state, and ordered them stricken. The defendant then pleaded to the merits of the accusation and denied his guilt. Upon his conviction, he moved for a new trial upon thirteen grounds, and his motion being overruled and disallowed, he brought the case to this court upon bill of exceptions and writ of error.

The first four grounds of the motion insist that the verdict is contrary to law and evidence, decidedly and strongly against the weight of evidence and the charge of the court, which is set out at length and made a part of the motion. The fifth and eleventh grounds of the motion complain of error in overruling the special pleas; the sixth, seventh, and twelfth grounds relate to the powers and duties of the jury as judges of the law and facts. The last complains that the judge charged that it was their duty to take the law from the court, and that he was responsible therefor, instead of instructing them, as he was requested in writing, that, being judges of the law as well as the facts, it was their privilege to differ with the court as to the interpretation of the laws applicable to the case, and if they conscientiously believed the law to be different from that given in charge, they not only had the right to dissenttherefrom, but it was their duty to render their verdict in accordance with their own convictions and belief as to what the law was. The substance of the eighth ground is that the court erred in refusing to charge defendant\'s written request, that, if it was shown defendant was insane before the killing, the continuance of this mental condition would be presumed to.exist at the time of the homicide, and if the state relied on the fact that the act was done during a lucid interval or while the prisoner was in his right mind, it must show by evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was sane at the very time; that it was incumbent upon the prosecution to establish the prisoner\'s restoration to sanity by the same degree of proof, as the law required to fix guilt in all other cases—that is to say, to the exclusion of all reasonable doubt. The ninth ground alleges as error the refusal of the court to charge that if, upon a consideration of all the facts, the jury had a reasonable doubt as to prisoner\'s sanity, they should give him the benefit of the doubt and acquit him.

The tenth ground alleges error in refusing to charge this request in writing: That while it is true the defendant has pleaded " not guilty, " and the issue is one of guilty or not guilty, yet it is in accordance with the law to ascertain, under this general plea, whether he was sane or insane at the time the homicide was...