State v. Evans
| Decision Date | 01 October 1887 |
| Docket Number | 214 |
| Citation | 3 So. 63,39 La.Ann. 912 |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | THE STATE OF LOUISIANA v. COLUMBUS EVANS |
APPEAL from the Tenth District Court, Parish of Red River. Hall, J.
M. J Cunningham, Attorney General, and J. C. Pugh, District Attorney, for the State, Appellee.
Egan & Pierson, for Defendant and Appellant.
TODD J. Poche, J., takes no part, having not heard the argument.
The defendant was indicted under section 790, R. S., for shooting with intent to murder while lying in wait.
The State subsequently abandoned that part of the indictment charging the accused with lying in wait, and the trial was had upon the charge of shooting with intent to murder.
The defendant was tried and convicted, and appeals from a sentence of five years' imprisonment at hard labor.
We find in the record two bills of exceptions.
1. The first is to a charge of the trial judge to the jury, as follows: "Where the evidence shows that it would have been murder if death had ensued, that, in itself, will be sufficient ground for the jury to infer the existence of the intention to murder."
This charge was incorrect for the reason that a party may be guilty of murder when there was no intention on his part to commit murder when the fatal blow was given or wound inflicted from which the death ensued. This doctrine was clearly recognized by the present court in the case of the State vs. Walker, 37 Ann. 560, in these words (quoting):
"If a mortal blow is unlawful and malicious and death ensues, the perpetrator is guilty of murder, whether he intended or not to kill, as he is responsible for the effect of such blow though he did not intend to kill." And among other authorities cited in that case in support of the principle referred to, is the following from Bishop:
"If a mortal blow is unlawful and malicious and death ensues, the perpetrator is guilty of murder; whether he intended to kill or not, he is responsible for the effects of such wilful and malicious blow, although he did not intend to kill." 2 Bishop Cr. L., § 679-689.
Roscoe, in his work on Criminal Evidence, after quoting an English statute making it a capital offence: "When, in the language of the statute, a party shall, by any means whatever, cause to any person any bodily injury, dangerous to life, with intent to commit murder," thus proceeds to comment:
"Where a party was indicted under the above section for inflicting an injury dangerous to life, with intent to commit murder, Patterson, J., held that the jury ought not to convict unless they were satisfied that the prisoner had in his mind a positive intention to murder, and that it was not sufficient that it would have been a case of murder, if death had ensued." Roscoe, p. 782.
The Attorney General in his able argument admits that "as an abstract legal proposition" this charge, without the qualification taken from the proffered special charge, may not have been a correct enunciation of the law, but that applied to this case...
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