State v. Wilson
| Decision Date | 19 June 1914 |
| Docket Number | No. 29296.,29296. |
| Parties | STATE v. WILSON. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
All held in the third paragraph of the opinion heretofore filed was that there was no error in giving the twenty-first instruction saying (1) that voluntary intoxication is no defense to crime, but (2) that it might be taken into consideration in determining whether defendant was capable of premeditation, deliberation, or willfulness, or of having a specific intent to kill. Whether it might be considered as tending to reduce murder in the second degree to manslaughter was not touched, though some excerpts quoted bear somewhat thereon.
[1][2] It needs hardly to be said that if a drunken man take the life of another, unaccompanied by circumstances of provocation or justification, the jury will be warranted in finding the existence of malice, though express malice has not been proven. But if there is evidence of provocation which, if acted upon immediately by a sober man, would be regarded as sufficient to reduce the offense to manslaughter, and the inquiry is whether the accused actually acted thereon, it is held by the weight of authority that evidence of intoxication may be considered in deciding whether the fatal act is to be attributed to malice, or to the passion of anger, excited by the previous provocation; such passion or anger being more easily excitable in an intoxicated person than in one who is sober. Rafferty v. People, 66 Ill. 118;State v. McCants, 1 Speers (S. C.) 384;Jones v. State, 29 Ga. 594;State v. Johnson, 41 Conn. 584;People v. Rogers, 18 N. Y. 9, 72 Am. Dec. 484; Rex v. Thomas, 7 C. & P. 817. Says Bishop, in volume 1, § 414, of Bishop's Criminal Law:
[3][4] This much has been said to indicate when and for what purpose evidence of intoxication may be considered in determining whether the killing was murder in the second degree or manslaughter. There was evidence of provocation which, if believed, must have been found sufficient, and if acted on by the accused...
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Parsons v. Brewer, 55029
...202 N.W.2d 49 ... Jerry Louis PARSONS, Appellant, ... Lou V. BREWER, Warden, Iowa State Penitentiary, Appellee ... No. 55029 ... Supreme Court of Iowa ... Nov. 15, 1972 ... George E. Wright, of Napier, Napier & ... See Price v. Georgia, 398 U.S. 323, 90 S.Ct. 1757, 26 L.Ed.2d 300 (1970); Iowa R.Civ.P. 344(a)(4)(Third); State v. Wilson, 166 Iowa 309, 323, 144 N.W. 47 (1913). See also State v. Drosos, 253 Iowa 1152, 1163--1165, 114 N.W.2d 526 (1962) ... VII ... ...