Edwards v. State

• Decision Date: 03 May 1937
• Docket Number: 32617
• Citation: 174 So. 57,178 Miss. 696
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: EDWARDS v. STATE

174 So. 57

178 Miss. 696

EDWARDS v. STATE

No. 32617

Supreme Court of Mississippi

May 3, 1937

Division A

APPEAL from the circuit court of Forrest county HON. W. J. PACK Judge.

Arbo Edwards was convicted for stealing an automobile over $ 25 in value, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded.

Earl L. Wingo, of Hattiesburg, for appellant.

The first assignment of error complained of relates to the granting of the instruction to the jury which is in this language: "The court charges the jury that voluntary drunkenness is no defense to crime."

By the above instruction the jury was directed to find the defendant guilty, if they believed he were drunk, independent of any intent to commit the crime of grand larceny.

It is always necessary to show an attempt to commit the crime of larceny, and where an act is charged as committed with a particular intent, drunkenness, if affecting the condition of the accused, is always a proper subject for the consideration of the jury.

McLeroy v. State, 25 So. 247; Jenkins v. State, 50 So. 582.

In view of the fact that this proof was in the record and before the jury, appellant had a right to let the jury pass upon the question of whether or not a criminal intent existed at the time of the taking of the automobile.

The second assignment of error complains of the refusal of the court to grant the instruction to the appellant as follows: "The court charges the jury that the mere taking of the taxi cab or automobile is not sufficient, and that, therefore, the State must show that same was taken, if at all, wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously."

Certainly the above instruction properly announced the law in the creme of grand larceny and certainly should have been granted to the appellant.

W. D. Conn, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

This court, in the early case of Kelly v. State, 3 S. & M. (11 Miss.) 518, laid down the rule that voluntary intoxication was no defense to crime. The rule thus established has not been departed from.

Gordon v. State, 29 So. 529; Butler v. State, 39 So. 1005; Melton v. State, 155 Miss. 659, 124 So. 802; People v. Rogers, 18 N.Y. 9, 72 Am. Dec. 484.

When one gets physically down and out from intoxicating liquors, of course, the possibility of the commission of crime is out of question. Up to that point, if such an one has voluntarily put himself in that condition, he should be held to the full consequences for his acts committed while his inhibitory powers are weakened and subdued. Any other rule would, as stated by the court in Kelly v. State, supra, furnish "complete emancipation from criminal justice."

OPINION

Smith, C. J.

The appellant, a sixteen year old youth, was convicted of stealing an automobile over $ 25 in value and sentenced to the penitentiary. His defense was that he was so intoxicated at the time he is said to have taken the automobile as to be incapable of having, and so did not have, the specific intent to steal it. The court below charged the jury for the state that "voluntary drunkenness is no defense to crime."

Drunkenness is at least quasi criminal, and if a person while voluntarily drunk commits a criminal act, the drunkenness supplies the criminal intent, except where a specific intent is necessary to constitute the crime charged. This rule is aptly illustrated in the law of homicide. At common law, homicide is separated into two classes--murder and manslaughter--in neither of which is a specific intent to kill necessary, consequently voluntary intoxication is no defense thereto. 1 Bishop, Crim. Law (9 Ed.), sec. 401. So say practically all the English and American authorities, in which connection see Kelly v. State, 3 S. & M. 518; Gordon v. State (Miss.), 29 So. 529; Butler v. State (Miss.), 39 So. 1005; Melton v. State, 155 Miss. 659, 124 So. 802. But where murder is divided by statute into two degrees, and to constitute it in the first degree there must be the specific intent to take life, if by reason of being too deeply intoxicated the accused person could not have had, so did not have, this specific intent, the murder is not in the first degree." 1 Bishop, Crim. Law (9 Ed.), section 409, and authorities there cited, including Hopt v. People of Utah, 104 U.S. 631, 26 L.Ed. 873.

One of our statutory definitions of "murder" is "the killing of a human being, without the authority of law when done with deliberate design to effect the death of the person killed, or of any...