Padgett v. The State

• Decision Date: 20 November 1885
• Docket Number: 12,667
• Citation: 3 N.E. 377,103 Ind. 550
• Parties: Padgett v. The State
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

3 N.E. 377

103 Ind. 550

Padgett v. The State

No. 12,667

Supreme Court of Indiana

November 20, 1885

From the Daviess Circuit Court.

The judgment is affirmed, with costs.

C. K Tharp, for appellant.

F. T Hord, Attorney General, W. B. Hord and J. H. Spencer, for the State.

OPINION

Howk J.

The indictment in this case charged that the appellant "Marshall Padgett, on the 25th day of July, 1885, at the county of Daviess, and State of Indiana, did then and there, in a rude, insolent and angry manner, unlawfully touch, strike and beat one William James, with intent then and there, and thereby, feloniously to steal, take and carry away the money of the said William James, of the value of three dollars in the lawful currency of the United States."

Upon the appellant's arraignment and plea of not guilty, the issues joined were by agreement of the parties submitted to the court for trial, without the intervention of a jury. After hearing the evidence, the court found appellant guilty as charged in the indictment, and assessed his punishment at two years in the State's prison and a fine of ten dollars, and, over his motions for a new trial and in arrest, judgment was rendered accordingly.

In this court appellant has assigned as errors the overruling (1) of his motion for a new trial, and (2) of his motion in arrest of judgment.

The first question discussed by appellant's counsel, under the alleged error of the court in overruling the motion for a new trial, is the sufficiency, or rather, as counsel claims, the insufficiency, of the evidence to sustain appellant's conviction. It is true, as counsel contends, that in such a prosecution as this "the intent was the gist of the felony charged, and it devolved upon the State to make it out." Greer v. State, 53 Ind. 420; White v. State, 53 Ind. 595. But it is equally true that the State is not expected and can not be required to make proof of felonious intent, as a fact, by direct and positive evidence; for, as a general rule, men who do or commit acts, which the law denounces as public offences, do not proclaim in public places the intent with which such acts are done. If the State were required to make direct and positive proof of the felonions intent which characterizes the act done as a public offence, the result would be that many persons, charged and guilty of public crimes, would go acquit "unwhipt of justice." Therefore all that the State is required to do in such cases is to introduce such evidence on the trial of the cause as will satisfy the triers of the facts, whether court or jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, not only that the act was done by the defendant, but that it was done with the felonious intent charged in the indictment.

The case at bar is not a satisfactory one upon the evidence appearing in the record; and yet it is not a case where we are authorized to interfere with the finding and judgment of the trial court. The learned judge who tried the cause had opportunities and facilities which we can not have for determining the credibility of witnesses and the proper weight to be given to their evidence. Upon the question of the felonious intent, the evidence seems to us, from our reading of it, to be weak and unsatisfactory, but we can not say that there is a failure of evidence on that or any other material point in the case. In accordance with repeated decisions of this court in similar cases, we must decline, therefore, to disturb the finding of the trial court on the evidence. Cox v. State, 49 Ind. 568; Long v. State, 95 Ind. 481; Murphy v. State, 97 Ind. 579; Dolke v. State, 99 Ind. 229; Clayton v. State, 100 Ind. 201.

Under the alleged error of the court in overruling the motion in arrest of judgment, appellant's counsel contends that the judgment ought to have been arrested, because the record fails to show that the indictment in this case...