People v. Jones

• Decision Date: 06 October 1924
• Docket Number: No. 92.,92.
• Citation: 228 Mich. 426,200 N.W. 158
• Parties: PEOPLE v. JONES.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

228 Mich. 426

200 N.W. 158

PEOPLE

v.JONES.

No. 92.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Oct. 6, 1924.

Error to Recorder's Court of Detroit; Wm. M. Heston, Judge.

Walter Jones was convicted of assault with intent to kill, and he brings error. Reversed and new trial granted.

Argued before CLARK, C. J., and McDONALD, BIRD, SHARPE, MOORE, STEERE, FELLOWS, and WIEST, JJ.

Bird and Moore, JJ., dissenting.

Edward G. Kemp, of Detroit, for appellant.

Andrew B. Dougherty, Atty. Gen., and Paul W. Voorhies, Pros. Atty., and W. McKay Skillman, Asst. Pros. Atty., both of Detroit, for the People.

McDONALD, J.

The defendant was convicted of an assault with intent to kill one Mable King on the 28th day of August, 1922, at her home in the city of Detroit. The people's testimony tends to show that he went to her home on August 27, 1922, and remained there all night; that he slept late, and that when Mrs. King went to his room to call him he wanted her to get into bed with him; that when she refused he said, ‘Do you know who I am? I am the great magnate, the black sheik;’ that he then attacked her with a knife; that she escaped out of the room; that after he had dressed he went downstairs and renewed the attack, chased her about the house, and declared he would kill her; that during the assault he repeatedly stabbed her in the side, abdomen, and hip, and bit her about the shoulders.

The defendant testified that Mable King kept a sporting house; that he went to her place the night before the alleged assault, and there drank intoxicating liquor to such an extent that he was unable to handle himself, and that the women put him to bed; that the following day, about noon, Mabel King and another woman came to his room with gin and absinthe, of which he drank; that he then bought drinks and was furnished with more liquor; that he became so intoxicated that he remembers nothing of the succeeding events. Other testimony tended to show that when he arrived at his rooming house he was ‘crazy drunk,’ and was sick for a couple of days thereafter. In short, it was the defendant's claim that he was unconscious of the assault; that he was in such a state of intoxication as to be incapable of forming and entertaining an intent to kill.

The one error assigned relates to the following instruction to the jury on the question of intoxication:

‘Now, the defense in this case, as I understand it, gentlemen of the jury, is temporary insanity, or mental derangement, brought on by the over indulgence in intoxicating liquor. I charge you gentlemen of the jury, that voluntary drunkenness is not an excuse for crime in this state. In other words, a man has not the right to indulge in the consumption of intoxicating liquor until he has reached a certain mental stage where he has not full control of his mental faculties and slay his enemy and be excused under the law. However, the law of this state requires every man to have sufficient control of his mental faculties when he commits a...