State v. Smith

• Decision Date: 13 February 1961
• Docket Number: No. 1,No. 47990,47990,1
• Citation: 342 S.W.2d 940
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Maynard Merhi SMITH, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 940

342 S.W.2d 940

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Maynard Merhi SMITH, Appellant.

No. 47990.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

Feb. 13, 1961.

Chas. M. Shaw, Clayton, for appellant.

John M. Dalton, Atty. Gen., Moody Mansur, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

WESTHUES, Presiding Judge.

Defendant Smith was tried before a jury in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Missouri. The jury, by its verdict, found defendant guilty of burglary and stealing. His punishment was fixed at two years's imprisonment in the State Penitentiary for the burglary and two years for stealing. A motion for new trial was overruled and defendant appealed from the sentences imposed.

Defendant has not filed a brief in this court. In the motion for new trial, he alleged that the State failed to prove that the offense of stealing had been committed; that the instructions failed to define burglary and stealing properly; and that evidence of an alleged confession should not have been admitted for the reason that the evidence disclosed the defendant was so intoxicated at the time that he did not know what he was doing.

The evidence as to what occurred shows the following: Early in the morning of January 7, 1959, at about 3:30 o'clock, the Wellston police were notified that a window of a store building of The Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company at 6356 Easton Avenue had been broken. The police, upon investigation, found that iron bars covering a window had been sawed and removed and that two doors had been broken. Inside the store, a shopping cart was found standing near an outside door. The cart was filled with merchandise valued at more than $100. Defendant was found hiding behind the furnace located in the basement. Defendant was taken to a police station where he, at about 5 o'clock that morning, signed a statement that he had sawed the bars and broken the doors to gain entrance to the storeroom; further, that he had placed the merchandise in the cart and pushed it to the place where the officer found it. A number of witnesses testified that the defendant had voluntarily given the information contained in the statement signed by him. These witnesses further testified that the defendant had been drinking but that he apparently knew what he was doing and was not drunk.

Defendant's evidence was, as defendant testified, that he remembered tearing a screen from a window of the store building but that that is all he remembered. Specifically, he said that he did not remember that he had sawed the bars, broken the doors, or that he had placed the merchandise in the cart, or that he had hidden behind the furnace. Defendant's wife testified that a police officer called her early on the morning in question and informed her where they had found her husband; that the officer had said to her, "Well, we have him here. He's drunk as a fool."

It is apparent that the question of whether defendant knew what he was doing when he answered questions about the breaking and theft was one of fact for a jury to decide. Furthermore, the general rule is that voluntary intoxication is not an excuse for the commission of an offense. 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law Sec. 66, p. 130; State v. Shipman, 354 Mo. 265, 189 S.W.2d 273, loc. cit. 274(1). The rule governing confessions or admissions made while the defendant is under the influence of liquor may be found in 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law Sec. 828, p. 1452, where it is stated, 'The fact that accused was more or less intoxicated when he confessed does not exclude the confession if he had sufficient mental capacity to know what he was saying. The rule is stated by some authorities to be that intoxication, less than mania, does not exclude a confession made during its continuance. However, the fact of intoxication may be considered by the jury as lessing the weight of the...