State v. Hundley

• Decision Date: 31 August 1870
• Citation: 46 Mo. 414
• Parties: STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. WILLIAM HUNDLEY, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

46 Mo. 414

STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent,

v.WILLIAM HUNDLEY, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

August Term, 1870.

Appeal from Fifth District Court.

H. M. Vories, with whom were B. F. Loan & S. Woodson, for appellant.

The seventh instruction given for the State was calculated to mislead the jury to the prejudice of the defendant, and was a comment or argument upon the evidence by the court, which is forbidden by the law, and trenches upon the province of the jury. (Schneer v. Lemp, 17 Mo. 142; 8 Mo. 268; Whitney v. The State, id. 165; Garesche v. Boyce, id. 228, 232; Emerson et al. v. Sturgeon, 18 Mo. 170; Rippy v. Friede, 26 Mo. 523; Scoggins v. Wilson et al., 13 Mo. 80; The State v. Cushing, 29 Mo. 215; Chouquette v. Barada, 28 Mo. 491-8; Hine v. St. Louis Public Schools, 30 Mo. 166; id. 201; Speed v. Herrin, 4 Mo. 356, 361; Labeaume v. Dodier, 1 Mo. 441; Loehner et al. v. Home Mut. Ins. Co., 19 Mo. 628; McDermott v. Barnum, 19 Mo. 204; Baldwin v. The State, 12 Mo. 223; Commonwealth v. Rogers, 1 Lead. Crim. Cas. 87, and note following.) It is for the jury to say what weight they will give the evidence.

H. B. Johnson, Attorney-General, with Chandler & Davis, for respondent.

I. Every man is presumed to be sane. The onus probandi is on the defendant to show insanity by a preponderance of evidence (Baldwin v. State, 12 Mo. 223; State v. Huting, 21 Mo. 464; State v. Worrell, 25 Mo. 205; State v. Klinger, 43 Mo. 131), and no presumption of continued or permanent insanity arises from proof of temporary insanity or delirium tremens. (Baldwin v. State, 12 Mo. 223; 1 Whart. Crim. Law, § 56; 1 Bish. Crim. Law, § 535; 4 Metc. 546.) Drunkenness is no excuse for crime. Neither can it be taken into consideration in determining the question of intent or malice. (State v. Cross, 27 Mo. 531; 1 Arch. Crim. Pr. & Pl. 31; 4 Blackst. Com., § 6; 1 Bish. Crim. Law, 490, 496, 498; People v. Robinson, 2 Pars. Crim. 235; People v. Hammill, id. 223; State v. Harlow, 21 Mo. 446; Shelton v. State, 14 Mo. 502; Hester v. State, 17 Ga. 146; Swan v. State, 4 Humph. 136.) And insanity, to excuse crime, must be of such a character and degree as to render the criminal incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, in regard to the act charged to be criminal. (Baldwin v. State, 12 Mo. 231; Commonwealth v. Rogers, 7 Metc. 500; State v. Freeman, 4 Dew. 9; 1 Whart. Crim. Law, § 16.)

II. Where the law gives to certain evidence a peculiar legal significance, it is not a commentary on the evidence to declare such rule of law in relation thereto. (Baldwin v. State, 12 Mo. 232; State v. Schoenwald, 31 Mo. 149; State v. Watson, id. 361; State v. Martin, 28 Mo. 530; State v. Bryan, 34 Mo. 507; State v. Floyd, 15 Mo. 349; State v. Dunn, 18 Mo. 419; State v. Jennings, id.)

WAGNER, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

The defendant was indicted in the Circuit Court of Gentry county for murder in the first degree, in the killing of Wm. A. Boyer, and, on a change of venue to DeKalb county, he was convicted and sentenced to be executed. The killing was most clearly proved, and the defense was rested solely upon the ground of insanity. The only question presented for consideration is the propriety of certain instructions given by the court, of its own motion and at the request of the prosecution, and also certain instructions which were asked by the defendant and refused.

An objection is raised against the third instruction given at the instance of the State, because it told the jury that it devolved upon the defendant to show to their satisfaction, by a clear preponderance of the testimony, that he was insane. The earlier decisions in this court announced the doctrine that a party relying on insanity as a defense should make it out to the satisfaction of the jury, and that he was not entitled to the benefit of a reasonable doubt as to his sanity. (State v. Huting, 21 Mo. 464; State v. McCoy, 34 Mo. 531.) But in the more recent case of The State v. Klinger, 43 Mo. 127, the question was again considered, and we held that the most reasonable rule was, that as the law presumed every person who had reached the age of discretion to be of sufficient capacity to be responsible for his crimes, the burder. of establishing the insanity of the accused affirmatively to the satisfaction of the jury, on the trial of a criminal case, rested upon the defense; but that it was not necessary that the defense should be established beyond a reasonable doubt; it was sufficient if the jury were reasonably satisfied by the weight or preponderance of the evidence that the accused was insane at the time of the commission of the act. It seems to me that the court, in the present case, by requiring a clear preponderance of evidence, introduced a qualification that was not enunciated in the Klinger case, and which had an evident tendency, and was calculated, to mislead. Insanity is a simple question of fact, to be proved like any other fact, and any evidence which reasonably satisfies the jury that the accused was insane at the time the act was committed, should be deemed sufficient.

After taking into consideration and overcoming the presumption of sanity, it is not perceived why any higher degree of evidence or any greater amount of proof should be required to prove the fact of insanity than any other question which may be raised and submitted upon the trial of a cause. The correct doctrine is that all symptoms and all tests of mental disease are purely matters of fact, to be determined by the jury; and that evidence which reasonably satisfies a jury that the disease exists, and which would warrant and induce a verdict upon any other issue, ought to be considered sufficient. From the instruction, the jury might have well inferred that a preponderance, or what would reasonably have satisfied them, was not enough, but that something more was necessary.

The fourth instruction, given at the request of the State, and the third instruction, given by the court of its own motion, may be considered together. The first of the two, in substance, declared that the voluntary drunkenness of the defendant, so far as the same was shown by the evidence to have existed at the time of the homicide, was no mitigation of the crime charged; and if the jury believed from the evidence that the defendant was laboring under a temporary frenzy or insanity at the time of the killing of Boyer, which was then and there the immediate result of intoxicating liquors or narcotics, he was equally guilty under the law as if he had been sober or sane at the time of the killing. The latter instruction, which was given directly by the court, told the jury that if they were satisfied, from the weight or preponderance of the whole evidence, that at the time the defendant killed Boyer he was so insane as not to know right from wrong, and as not to know that the act he was committing was wrong at the time of its commission, and that he was so far deprived of will at the time of the commission of the act as not to possess the power of choosing between right and wrong in regard to the act, and that his insanity was not the result of fits of intoxication, but was occasioned by previous habits of intoxication and the long use of narcotics, then they should find the defendant not guilty.

It is well settled that drunkenness does not mitigate a crime. Any other principle would be destruction to the peace and safety of society. Every murderer would drink to shelter his intended guilt. There would be an end of convictions for homicide if drunkenness avoided responsibility. As it is, most of the premeditated murders are committed under the stimulus of liquor. When the guilty purpose is first sedately conceived, most men fortify themselves for the scene of blood by the use of intoxicating drinks. If, therefore, drunkenness imparted irresponsibility, there would be no convictions. If the assassin would not take liquor to strengthen his nerves, he would to evade the penalty of his crime. (Wh. & St. Med. Jur., § 67; 1 Wh. Cr. Law, § 38; State v. Cross, 27 Mo. 332.)

Temporary insanity, produced immediately by intoxication, does not destroy responsibility where the patient, when sane and responsible, made himself voluntarily drunk. Sir Edward Coke lays down the common-law rule to be, that, “as for a drunkard who is voluntarius dæmon, he hath, as has been said, no privilege thereby; but what hurt or ill soever he doeth, his drunkenness doth aggravate it, omne crimen ebrietas et incendit et detegit.” (Co. Litt. 247, a.) And although it is doubtful whether it can be said that drunkenness aggravates a crime in a judicial sense, yet it is unquestioned that it forms no defense to the fact of guilt.

Thus Judge Story, after noticing that insanity, as a general rule, produces irresponsibility, went on to say: “An exception is where the crime is committed by a party while in a fit of intoxication, the law not permitting a man to avail himself of the excuse of his own gross vice and misconduct to shelter himself from the legal consequences of such crime.” (United States v. Drew, 5 Mason, 28.) Sir Matthew Hale, in his “History of the Pleas of the Crown,” written nearly two hundred years ago, says: “The third kind of dementia is that which is dementia affectata, namely, drunkenness. This vice doth deprive men of the use of reason, and puts many men into a perfect but temporary phrenzy; and therefore, according to some civilians, such a person committing homicide shall not be punished simply for the crime of homicide, but shall suffer for his drunkenness, answerable to the nature of the crime occasioned thereby; so that yet the primal cause of the punishment is rather the drunkenness than the crime committed in it. But by the laws of England such a person shall have no privilege by his voluntarily contracted madness, but shall have the same judgment as if he were in his right senses.” He then states two exceptions to the rule: one where...