Estes v. The State Of Ga.

• Decision Date: 31 July 1875
• Parties: Edward E. Estes, plaintiff in error. v. The State of Georgia,defendant in error.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

55 Ga. 31

Edward E. Estes, plaintiff in error. v. The State of Georgia, defendant in error.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

(Atlanta, July Term, 1875.)

Criminal law. Drunkenness. Charge of Court. Before Judge McCutchen. Whitfield Superior Court. April Term, 1875.

Reported in the opinion.

Johnson & McCamy, for plaintiff in error.

A. T. Hackett, solicitor general, for the state.

Jackson, Judge.

The defendant was indicted in two counts—one for assault with intent to murder, and the other for shooting at another. The jury found him guilty of the assault with intent to murder. A motion was made for a new trial on the grounds that the court charged the jury "that voluntary drunkenness is no excuse for crime, " and refused to charge "that the jury may take into consideration the fact of defendant's drunkenness to grade the offense, and may look to the fact in determining the intent, and that if the jury should find that he was not conscious of what he was doing, the jury might take that fact into consideration in determining whether he intended, with malice aforethought, to kill at the time he shot." The court refused to grant the new trial, and defendant excepted.

The main question is, was the court right in refusing to charge as requested? We think that he was clearly right under the testimony in this case. The defendant shot Williams without the slightest provocation, and whilst he was drinking considerably, he was sober enough to intend to shoot, and he did shoot and hit him in the face, and the ball is lodged there just under the brain, *inflicting a permanent and dangerous wound—such a wound that excitement will endanger him for life, in the opinion of the physicians who examined him. He was sober enough, too, to get off rapidly from the place of the shooting, nor is there any motive suggested by the proof to rebut the idea of a malicious intent, a careless disregard of human life. We all think, therefore, that there was no error in the refusal to charge as requested under the facts of this case. For myself I think that a man cannot voluntarily make himself so drunk as if he shoot and kill another without provocation, the crime will be graded or reduced from murder to manslaughter; or if he shoot at another without provocation the crime can be made by drunkenness less than assault with intent to murder. The statute is plain that voluntary drunkenness shall be no excuse, and if it be made to lower or grade the crime, to lessen it in any case...