State v. Daniels

• Decision Date: 15 December 1958
• Docket Number: No. 44267,44267
• Citation: 109 So.2d 896,236 La. 998
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Freddie DANIELS.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 896

109 So.2d 896

236 La. 998

STATE of Louisiana v. Freddie DANIELS.

No. 44267.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Dec. 15, 1958.

On Rehearing March 23, 1959.

Gravel, Humphries, Sheffield & Mansour, Alexandria, for defendant-appellant.

Jack P. F. Gremillion, Atty. Gen., M. E. Culligan, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richard Kilbourne, Dist. Atty., Clinton, for appellee.

TATE, Justice.

Defendant was convicted of a violation of Article 122 of the Criminal Code (LSA-R.S. 14:122), 'Public Intimidation', and sentenced to five years in the State Penitentiary.

Defendant appeals from said conviction upon the sole ground that there was a total absence of any evidence as to his guilt of the crime charged. This question is raised by a bill of exceptions reserved as to the trial court's denial of defendant's motion for a new trial following his conviction,¹ to which bill the entire transcript of testimony was attached.

An examination of the evidence attached to the bill discloses that the incident forming the basis of this charge occurred on February 22, 1958, when defendant was a convict inmate at the State Penitentiary at Angola. (He has since been paroled.) On the evening in question, according to Otis Edwards, a correctional officer in charge of defendant's dormitory, defendant was out of line on the way to the evening meal. Defendant having ignored Edwards' instructions to go to the end of the chow line, Edwards testified he grabbed defendant by the upper arm, following which defendant swung and hit him. This use of force upon the prison guard by defendant is the basis of the present criminal charge.

The crime of 'Public Intimidation' is defined by Article 122 of the Criminal Code as follows:

'Public intimidation is the use of violence, force, or threats, upon any of the following persons, With the intent to influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment, or duty:

'(1) Public officer or public employee; or

'(2) Grand or petit juror; or

'(3) Witness, or person about to be called as a witness upon a trial or other proceeding before any court, board or officer authorized to hear evidence or to take testimony; or

'(4) Voter or election official at any general, primary, or special election.

'Whoever commits the crime of public intimidation shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars, or imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than five years, or both.' (Italics ours.)

Conceding that the evidence shows defendant used force upon Edwards² and that Edwards was a public employee, counsel for defendant nevertheless urges that the conviction should be set aside because there is a total absence of evidence to prove that defendant hit Edwards 'with the Intent to influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment, or duty.' (Italics ours.)

The State argues that only general criminal intent must be proved to support a conviction: that is, the reasonable and probable result of defendant's battery upon the prison guard under the circumstances being (it is argued) to influence the conduct of that public employee with regard to his duties, defendant is presumed to have contemplated these ordinary and natural consequences of his battery when he committed same. LSA-R.S. 14:8(2) ('general criminal intent'); cf. State v. Johnston, 207 La. 161, 20 So.2d 741.

It is further pointed out that 'though intent is a question of fact, it need not be proven as a fact, it may be inferred from the circumstances of the transaction,' LSA-R.S. 15:445. We are reminded of the well settled jurisprudence that "It is only where there is no evidence at all upon some essential element of crime charged that (the court) may set aside a verdict.' * * * But 'Where there is some evidence to sustain the conviction, no matter how little, this court cannot pass upon the sufficiency thereof. That comes within the exclusive province of the trial judge and jury," State v. McDonell, 208 La. 602, 23 So.2d 230, 231.

Pretermitting entirely whether the disciplinary problems of penal institutions were ever intended by the legislature to be within the purview of the statute, the State's contention that the crime of public intimidation may be committed with general criminal intent and without specific criminal intent is untenable.

Article 11 of the Criminal Code (LSA-R.S. 14:11) provides:

'The definitions of some crimes require a specific criminal intent, while in others no intent is required. Some crimes consist merely of criminal negligence that produces criminal consequences. However, In the absence of qualifying provisions, the terms 'intent' and 'intentional' have reference to 'general criminal intent. " (Italics ours.)

The statutory definition of the crime of the public intimidation provides that it is the use of force upon a public employee 'with intent To influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment, or duty.' (Italics ours.) The italicized provisions ('to influence', etc.) qualify the intent statutorily required to commit the crime defined.³ The statutory crime is thus not the intentional use of force or threats upon a public employee, but Rather the use of force or threats upon him with the specific intent to influence his conduct in relation to his duties.

Specific criminal intent is defined by Article 10(1) of our Criminal Code (LSA-R.S. 14:10(1)) 'Specific criminal intent is that state of mind which exists when the circumstances indicate that the offender Actively desired the prescribed criminal consequences to follow his act or failure to act.' (Italics ours.)

It is contradistinguished from general criminal intent, which exists 'when the circumstances indicate that the offender, in the ordinary course of human experience, must have adverted to the prescribed criminal consequences as reasonably certain to result from his act or failure to act,' Article 10(2), Criminal Code (LSA-R.S. 14:10(2)).

In short, specific intent is present when from the circumstances the offender must have subjectively desired the prohibited result; whereas general intent exists when from the circumstances the prohibited result may reasonably be expected to follow from the offender's voluntary act, irrespective of any subjective desire to have accomplished such result.

Applied to the present case, it was necessary for the State to prove that the defendant 'actively desired' when he hit the prison guard 'to influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment, or duty.'

There is a total absence of any evidence in the record as to this requisite specific intent on the part of defendant. The testimony of the prosecuting witness, Edwards, indicates simply that the defendant struck him, crying 'No, you don't push me around, not here,' when said witness grabbed defendant by the upper arm to repeat his instructions to the latter to go to the end of the line.⁴ This prosecuting witness on cross-examination candidly admitted that the defendant did not strike him to induce him to do or not to do anything.⁵ (The only other witnesses testifying as to the event--all convicts or former convicts testifying on behalf of defendant, whom it was well within the province of the trial court to disbelieve--told of an unprovoked attack on the defendant on the part of the prison guard.) Defendant's specific intent to commit the statutory crime cannot be presumed from the naked fact that he hit the prison guard.

'Where a specific intent is an element of a crime, the specific intent must be proved as an independent fact and cannot be presumed from the commission of the unlawful act,' 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 32, p. 91. See: Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288; 1 Wharton's Criminal Evidence (12th ed., 1955) Section 131 at p. 244.

'The intent with which a harmful act is done is usually not expressed in words, and the jury is permitted to draw such inferences of intent as are warranted under all the circumstances of the particular case, But there is no presumption of law, either conclusive or disputable, that an act was done with any specific intent, unless some statute provides for such presumption in the trial of a particular offense,' Perkins, Criminal Law (1957) p. 674. (Italics ours.)

The State's argument that the trial court's apparent determination that the defendant specifically intended by hitting the prison guard to influence his conduct presents a non-reviewable factual matter, overlooks that such inference under the circumstances of this case and the legal principles above enunciated is unjustified and cannot as a matter of law prove the State's case. A specific intent cannot be presumed from an unlawful act which does not naturally bespeak the intent. Anderson, Wharton's Criminal Law and Procedure (1957) Section 60, pp. 135--6. As stated in a leading case on the subject, Hubbard v. United States, 9 Cir., 1935, 79 F.2d 850 at page 853: 'The color of the act determines the complexion of the intent only in those situations where common experience has found a reliable correlation between a particular act and a corresponding intent.' The instantaneous and angered blow by defendant herein responsive to the guard's shove does not by itself reliably indicate the requisite specific intent to commit the serious crime with which defendant is charged.

Thus, in disposing of somewhat similar legal contentions in State v. Nomey, 204 La. 667, 16 So.2d 226, where we set aside a conviction of a storekeeper for unlawfully keeping alcoholic beverages For sale in a dry parish, we held that the only evidence in the transcript was that the whiskey, wine, and beer were kept in the living quarters in the rear of the store and that there was no evidence whatsoever of any proven facts or circumstances tending to show that the defendant was keeping such alcoholic beverages For sale. See In re Glassberg, 230 La. 396, 88 So.2d 707 (conviction of juvenile as a delinquent for having committed an aggravated battery...