Ryals v. State, 48165

• Decision Date: 16 December 1974
• Docket Number: No. 48165,48165
• Parties: Wayne M. RYALS v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 354

305 So.2d 354

Wayne M. RYALS v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 48165.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Dec. 16, 1974.

Lawrence D. Arrington, Hattiesburg, for appellant.

A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen., by Vera Madel Speakes, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

SMITH, Justice:

Wayne M. Ryals was convicted in the Circuit Court of Forrest County of assault and battery with intent to murder, and sentenced to serve a term of ten years in the penitentiary. He appeals.

Two grounds for reversal are assigned: (1) The verdict is contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence and (2) the verdict is contrary to the law and to the evidence.

Appellant's contention is that the overwhelming weight of the evidence shows that appellant is not guilty, because he was intoxicated, at the time of his act, to a degree that made him incapable of forming the intent to murder, which is a necessary ingredient of the crime charged.

Appellant relies upon Bullock v. State, 195 Miss. 340, 15 So.2d 285 (1943), to support his position. In Bullock, a mother and son were awakened about 1:00 o'clock in the morning by a man who demanded to be let into their home. The son fired a pistol and the man went away, but returned about an hour later. The son again fired the pistol and the man again fled. Shortly thereafter he was apprehended and found to be drunk. No tools or weapons of any kind were found in his possession. His conviction of burglary on these facts was reversed by this Court, the Court saying:

While his drunkenness may be no defense, it must remain a factor in adjudging whether there was present a definite intent to steal. It is no condonation of the wanton and barbarous conduct of defendant to assert that while a larcenous intent could reasonably be inferred as a matter of logic, it may not be done as a matter of law. In reaching this conclusion we have curbed impulses ordinarily excited by suspicion and resentment, to which the jury must have succumbed.

Under the entire circumstances here presented, we believe there was no warrant to find beyond all reasonable doubt that the defendant was attempting to carry out a burglarious intent to commit the only crime which would justify conviction here, that is, an intent to commit larceny. (Emphasis added). (195 Miss. at 344, 15 So.2d at 286)

Obviously, in Bullock, the circumstances would have been hardly sufficient to support a finding of an intent to commit larceny, whether the appellant there had been drunk or sober.

In the present case, the incident, which gave rise to the prosecution, occurred when appellant shot his own unarmed son with a twelve gauge shotgun. The shooting occurred in the course of an argument between father and son, the son having testified about it as follows: 'He (appellant) kept trying to get us to go in the house, and I told him that we wasn't going in the house because it was hot in there, and he walked up there to me and acted like he was going to hit me, and I told him that he didn't have a chance then, and he said, I don't, huh. I said, no, and he went in the house, he muttered something, I don't know what it was, and come back out with a gun in his hand.' This version, in substance, is borne out by the testimony of a number of others who were present at the time. Appellant did not testify.

Almost immediately thereafter appellant shot his son with the gun, inflicting injuries which caused the loss of the son's leg. The doctor, who saw the victim at the hospital, found him in a condition of profound shock. He was suffering from multiple wounds across his lower abdomen, both thighs, and genitalia, and was hemorrhaging severely. The doctor stated the wound to the right thigh went through the vessels, arteries and veins, the patient was losing...