McDaniel v. State, 50037

• Decision Date: 15 March 1978
• Docket Number: No. 50037,50037
• Parties: Kenneth McDANIEL v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 1151

356 So.2d 1151

Kenneth McDANIEL v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 50037.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

March 15, 1978.

Rehearing Denied April 12, 1978.

Ronald N. Ashley, C. A. Henley, Jr., Jackson, for appellant.

A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen., by Karen Gilfoy, Asst. Atty. Gen. and Frankie Walton White, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

En Banc.

WALKER, Justice, for the court:

McDaniel was convicted of armed robbery in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County, Mississippi. The jury found him guilty, but recommended leniency. The court sentenced McDaniel to fifteen years in the State penitentiary.

The record reveals that on September 20, 1975, at about 7:30 p. m., Reverend Joseph H. Booth and his wife went to Cook's Lake, on the outskirts of Jackson, for a cookout. Booth testified that shortly after their arrival at the lake a white man with an eight-year-old boy drove up in a pickup truck. He told Booth and his wife:

I want to warn you all that there are some Negroes that are coming down to this lake and robbing people. Several nights ago, they robbed me. I'm down here with some guns in my pickup and I intend to shoot them.

(A police offense report indicated that defendant had been robbed by three black males approximately six weeks before the present occurrence. This robbery occurred in the City of Jackson at Woodrow Wilson Avenue and Whitfield Mill Road, as defendant sat in his car at a red light).

Subsequently, the Booths and McDaniel engaged in conversation, with McDaniel rebuilding the Booths' fire after they had difficulty getting it going. At some point, Rev. Booth attempted to witness to McDaniel. McDaniel then became agitated and annoyed with Booth. When the defendant walked a short distance away, Mrs. Booth suggested to her husband that they go home. She walked to their car, and while Booth was emptying the hot coals out of the grill, defendant suddenly ran up behind him, put both arms around him, stabbing him with a knife in his left hand. He then told Booth that he knew Booth had a pistol in his pocket and told him to drop it. Throughout this, he was threatening to kill Booth. Booth dropped the .22 calibre pistol and defendant's stepson picked it up and gave it to defendant. Defendant then cocked the gun, and still holding a knife to Booth's throat, told the boy to get Booth's pocketbook.

The defendant then kept Booth there for approximately thirty minutes. A police car approached with its lights on, (Mrs. Booth had run away at the beginning and had procured the aid of the police) and when McDaniel saw the approaching police car,

he turned Booth loose and fled. The investigating officers, upon arrival, found defendant's stepson still in defendant's truck, with the keys in his pocket. The truck was registered in defendant's name, but he was not found. The defendant was apprehended in Kentucky or Tennessee some thirty days later.

I.

At trial, the defense theory was that defendant was so intoxicated he could not form the requisite intent required for the commission of armed robbery.

At the outset, the proper standard concerning voluntary intoxication as a defense must be kept in mind. In Kelly v. State, 11 (3 S&M) Miss. 518 (1844), the standard was enunciated as:

. . . it must be clearly proved, that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reasons, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or, if he did understand them, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong. (Emphasis added). (11 Miss. at 528).

In Thurmond v. State, 212 Miss. 36, 53 So.2d 44 (1951), (a murder case) where the Court had under consideration the extent, if any, of voluntary intoxication which would reduce a crime from murder to manslaughter, an instruction was allowed which enunciated the standard as:

. . . it must be intoxication of such a degree as to render the slayer incapable of comprehending his relation to others, incapable of formulating an intent to kill, and unconscious of the nature and probable consequences of his act. ¹ (Emphasis added). (212 Miss. at 44, 53 So.2d at 46).

The Court then went on to point out that on the facts of the case they were not presented with intoxication which was "totally disabling." Thurman v. State, supra; See also Kendall v. State, 244 Miss. 618, 145 So.2d 924 (1962).

Other authorities have been more specific requiring intoxication ". . . of that degree and extent as renders accused practically an automaton . . . ." Tate v. Commonwealth, 258 Ky. 685, 80 S.W.2d 817, 821 (1935) or that it is "(S)o extreme as to entirely suspend the power of reason." People v. Lion, 10 Ill.2d 208, 139 N.E.2d 757, 760 (1957) or "impossible . . . to form a criminal intent." Gower v. State, 298 P.2d 461, 464 (Okl.Cr.1956).

It is clearly established in Mississippi that the credibility of witnesses is particularly within the province of the jury and not for the Supreme Court to determine on appeal. Murphree v. State, 228 So.2d 599 (Miss.1969). It is also well established that in reviewing the sufficiency of evidence to support a verdict, this Court must accept as having been established all that was proved by the evidence as well as all that such evidence reasonably tended to prove, together with all reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, favorable to the theory of prosecution. Carroll v. State, 196 So.2d 878 (Miss.1967). More specifically, this Court has pointed out on numerous occasions that where the defense theory is voluntary intoxication to such an extent as to render the defendant incapable of forming the necessary intent, ". . . the issue (is) a factual one and its resolution (is) peculiarly for the jury." Berry v. State, 288 So.2d 457, 459 (Miss.1974) (with other cases collected therein).

When these standards are applied to the present case, the following is revealed by or may be inferred from the record:

The defendant was identified as being the perpetrator of the crime through the cumulative testimony of the victim, the victim's wife, and the officers who found the defendant's truck and stepson at the scene of the crime. The defendant does not deny the crime but only contends that he cannot remember because of alcohol induced amnesia.

The uncontradicted testimony accepted by the jury reveals that the defendant held a knife on the victim, actually cutting him, took his billfold, and upon the approach of a police car fled the scene. The act of fleeing in itself reflects a knowledge of wrongful actions. Additionally, his own wife testified Again, this indicates a conscious awareness of right and wrong and the ability to make a judgment. Other testimony tended to impeach the defendant's alleged loss of memory, e. g., the jury must certainly have noted the telling fact that the defendant had no difficulty remembering exactly how much he had drunk (a fact necessary to his defense), but allegedly could remember nothing else.

that when he returned home at 11 p. m. (during the period he allegedly does not remember and was incapacitated to such an extent he could not tell right from wrong), he stated to her: "Well, even if they just want to talk to me, its still going to break parole. . . . I just, I just can't do that."

It is argued by defendant that it is significant that he stated he thought the victim was the person who had robbed him previously, but the uncontradicted evidence tends to minimize the impact of any such statement. Without contradiction or even offer of contradiction by defendant's witnesses, the record reveals that just minutes before such alleged statement was made, the defendant had been telling the victim that those who had robbed him were blacks and had warned his victims to be cautious. This illustrates a conscious knowledge of who had robbed him and belies the contention that a statement accusing his victim of robbing him shows that he could not tell right from wrong. Further, this is not a case of an individual reduced by alcohol to total helplessness, but rather one where the individual was capable of conversing, building a fire, taking a gun from his victim, and driving an automobile, all when allegedly unable to form "intent."

We are of the opinion that when the evidence is construed in the light most favorable to the verdict as found by the jury, as is the proper standard, there can be no doubt as to the correctness of the jury in disregarding appellant's plea of intoxication as a defense.

II.

The case of Aetna Life Insurance Company v. Evins, 199 So.2d 238 (Miss.1967) relied on by appellant in support of his contention that the court and jury were bound to accept the opinion of his medical experts that he was unable to form the necessary intent to commit a crime is patently inapplicable in the case sub judice. The thrust of this decision is that medical testimony may be conclusive where the subject matter under consideration is such that (1) a jury could have "no knowledge whatsoever except as conveyed by medical experts", and (2) the medical testimony on the matter is undisputed. The effect of intoxication on persons, including its bearing on their ability to form an intent to do a specific act does not lie within the exclusive province of medical experts, nor is it "wholly beyond the range of the experience or observation of layman . . . (including judges and jurors)." Kramer Service v. Wilkins, 184 Miss. 483, 488, 186 So. 625, 628 (1939). In addition, the medical testimony was not undisputed. It was self-contradictory or, at best, susceptible of two interpretations.

III.

Was the state's failure to disclose certain investigative reports reversible error?

Eight days before trial, defendant filed a motion to compel production and disclosure. The motion was granted and among other things required the state to disclose information in the possession of the state which "may be favorable to the defendant and material...