Walls v. State
| Citation | 8 So. 680,90 Ala. 618 |
| Parties | WALLS v. STATE. |
| Decision Date | 06 January 1891 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Alabama |
Appeal from circuit court, Tallapoosa county; JAMES R. DOWDELL Judge.
Appellant was convicted for an assault with intent to murder. On the trial the state introduced evidence to show that, while one Stroud was assisting one Leonard in a blacksmith shop defendant entered the shop, and said to Stroud, "God damn you, I am going to kill you;" and "immediately rushed on him with an open knife in his hand, and stabbed him in the back, cutting him;" and after Stroud had been cut twice, and defendant attempted to cut him again, he struck the defendant in the head with a hammer. The testimony for defendant, which was given by his mother, brother, and himself, tended to show that the said Stroud struck him with the hammer first, and then the defendant stabbed him. The court gave the following written charges to the jury for the prosecution: (1) "An actual intention to take the life of the party assaulted is not a necessary ingredient of an assault with intent to murder, and if the jury believe from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant unlawfully and maliciously inflicted a serious wound on W. D Stroud, from which death in the natural course of events would be likely to follow, then they must find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment." (2) "If the jury believe from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally, unlawfully, and maliciously inflicted a wound upon W. D. Stroud, which would in the natural course of events be likely to cause the death of said W. D. Stroud, then the defendant is guilty as charged in the indictment, although they may believe from the evidence that he had no actual intention to take the life of the said W. D. Stroud." (3) "If the jury believe from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant assaulted W. D. Stroud with intent to do him grievous bodily harm, accompanied with ability to effect it, without legal excuse or sufficient provocation, then the defendant is guilty as charged in the indictment, although they may believe he had no actual intention to take the life of the said W. D. Stroud." To each of these charges defendant excepted.
W. L. Martin, Atty. Gen., for the State.
Questions as to the correctness of instructions given or refused to be given to juries, in respect to the intent necessary in the offense of assault with intent to murder, and the proof of it, have been several times passed on by this court; and we are aware that the profession are either not agreed as to the effect of these decisions, or are inclined to the view that the later adjudications emasculate the doctrine that an intent to take life is an essential element of the crime. We do not understand that it has ever been the purpose of this court to hold that an intention on the part of the person making the assault to take life is not a necessary factor in the offense denounced by the statute. The existence of such purpose is, indeed, the sole predicate for the increased ignominy and punishment meted out to this offense beyond that visited upon the mere act of the defendant. It is this mental condition, taken in connection with the substantive act which converts the thing done from a misdemeanor into a felony, and replaces the lighter punishment, the less degradation, and the exemption from civil disabilities of the one, with the heavier and more ignominious punishment and loss of citizenship of the other. Surely a criminal factor, which is the basis of such results, must find lodgment in the averment and proof of its existence, before the results can ensue in any enlightened system of jurisprudence. The confusion on the point has grown up, it would seem, from certain expressions in opinions handed down here in passing upon the language of charges requested for defendants in the courts below. These expressions were perhaps unfortunate, and certainly might have been more carefully guarded, though, when considered with respect to the case to which they were applied it, cannot be fairly said that they are inconsistent with a necessity for proof of an intention to take life. They were employed in each case, as will appear from critical examination, in condemnation of charges the effect of which was to mislead the jury into requiring something more than proof of such intention, or other and more direct proof of the intention than was supplied by the circumstances of the act done, though the evidence thus afforded might be entirely satisfactory; or proof of some particular kind of intention to kill, as that it was positive, or deliberate, or specific, etc.; and not as declarations that such intention need not be found by the...
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Sparks v. State, 6 Div. 572
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