{ "id": 1875709, "name": "Wood vs. The State", "name_abbreviation": "Wood v. State", "decision_date": "1879-11", "docket_number": "", "first_page": "341", "last_page": "346", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "34 Ark. 341" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ark.", "id": 8808, "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 34, "name_long": "Arkansas", "name": "Ark." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "26 Ark., 398", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 8727017 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/26/0398-01" ] }, { "cite": "1 Tex. Ct. App., 36", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Tex. Ct. App.", "case_ids": [ 123729 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/tex-ct-app/1/0036-01" ] }, { "cite": "1 Baldw., 517", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "Baldw.", "opinion_index": 0 } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 470, "char_count": 7707, "ocr_confidence": 0.41, "pagerank": { "raw": 7.105944837643268e-07, "percentile": 0.9667497989265011 }, "sha256": "7820cbd596c6fdcb39d7b8e57a8439e6aee0d9d9434b38aa470b3d6535be7ddd", "simhash": "1:a924d80389d32d99", "word_count": 1366 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T18:09:16.201435+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "Wood vs. The State." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Harrison, J.\nThe appellant was tried and convicted of the crime of grand larceny in stealing a pistol, the property of one Cheek.\nThe pistol, which was of the value of f 8, was taken from the room of the owner, at a hotel, and out of a coat pocket, on the night of the fifth of August, 1879; and was, on the fifteenth of the same month, found in the defendant\u2019s possession.\nThe defendant, a lawyer, had been for three or four years very intemperate, and for several weeks before he was found with the pistol in his possession, almost continuously drunk. On the night of the fifteenth of August, he was very drunk \u2014 according to one of the witnesses, crazy drunk \u2014 and the constable, learning that he had a pistol, to prevent his doing harm, took it from him, when it was found to be the pistol that had been taken from Cheek\u2019s room. When it was taken from the defendant, he said it had been given, him by one Hamp. Lane, who had than, as was proven at the trial, left the county. Several witnesses testified that the defendant\u2019s conduct during his spree, or drunkenness, was strange and unnatural \u2014 quite different from such as is the effect of ordinary drunkenness \u2014 and that he appeared demented to some degree. One of them, a physician, who had known him two or three years, said that there were times during his spree when he thought he did not know what he was about, and he believed his mind, by long and excessive indulgence in ardent spirits, had become impaired; and another physician, who was called to see him on the seventeenth of August, the day after his arrest, said he found him suffering with symptoms of mania a potu, and that the functions of the brain were partially paralyzed.\nIt was proven that the defendant had previously borne a good character for honesty and integrity.\nThe court was asked to instruct the jury for the defendant that, if they believed, from the evidence, the defendant took the pistol, but that at the time he was so under the influence of intoxicating liquor, a felonious intent could not have been formed in his mind, they should find him not guilty; which instruction the .court refused to give.\nAs a general doctrine, voluntary intoxication furnishes no \u25a0excuse for crime, even when the intoxication is so extreme as to make the person unconscious of what he is doing. \u201cPerhaps no better illustration of the doctrine,\u201d says Mr. Bishop, \u201c can be given than to state its application in ordinary cases of homicide. The common law divides all indictable homicides into murder and manslaughter ; but the specific intent to kill is not necessary in either. A man may be guilty of murder without intending to take life. He may be guilty \u25a0of manslaughter without so intending; or he may intend to take life, yet not commit any crime in taking it. Now the \u2022doctrine of the courts is, that the intenti\u00bfn to drink may fully supply the place of malice aforethought; so that if \u2022one voluntarily becomes so drunk as not to know what he is about, and then with a deadly weapon Rills a man, the killing will be murder, the, same as if he were sober. In \u25a0other words, the mere fact of drunkenness will not alone reduce to manslaughter a homicide which would otherwise be murder, much less extract from it altogether its indictable quality.\u201d 1 Bish. Crim. Law, sec. 401. But he says that, \u201cin cases where the law requires, not geueral malevolence, but a specific intent to commit the particular act, which intent must concur with the act in point of time, in order to constitute the offense charged against a prisoner, he can not be guilty, if, at the time when the act transpired, he was so drunk as to be incapable of entertaining such intent.\u201d lb., see. 408.\n\u201cIntoxication is no excuse for crime,\u201d said Judge Baldwin, in United States v. Roudenbush, \u201c when the offense consists merely in doing a criminal act, without regarding intention. But when the act done is innocent in itself, and criminal only when done with a corrupt or malicious motive, a jury may, from intoxication, presume that there was a want of criminal intention; that the reasoning faculty, the power of discrimination between right and wrong, was lost in the excitement of the occasion. But if the mind still acts; if its reasoning and discriminating faculty remain, a state of partial intoxication affords no ground of a favorable presumption in favor of an honest or innocent intention, in cases where a dishonest and criminal intention would be fairly inferred from the commission of the same act when sober.\u201d United States v. Roudenbush, 1 Baldw., 517.\nIn larceny, thpre must be a concurrence with the act\u2014 an intent to do it \u2014 and also a felonious intent; and the same author we have quoted, says: \u201cA bare intentional trespass not being larceny, but the specific intent to steal being necessary, also, if one who is too drunk to entertain this specific intent takes property, relinquishing it before-the intent could arise in his mind, there is no larceny.\u201d\u2019 Sec. 411; Wing v. The State, 1 Tex. Ct. App., 36; Johnson v. The State, ib., 146; Lozar v. The State, ib., 488.\nThe instruction should have been given.\nDuring the trial, the officer in charge of the jury took them to his drug store and treated them to whisky, and all of them, except two drank. He also at night took them to a billiard saloon, where they remained a half hour, and on Sunday, took them in a hack five or six miles in the country to church. And the prosecuting attorney loaned one of \u2022them a shirt. It was proven that when they were taken to the billiard saloon, they sat together, and the officer drew a chalk line between them and the crowd in the saloon, and that there was no intermingling between them and the persons there; and that when at church, they were kept together, and not permitted to disperse.\nIn Thompson v. The State, 26 Ark., 398, the court say: \u201c The conclusion to be derived from the former decisions of this court, and which seems to be well supported by the authorities, as to the consequence of the misconduct of the jury, in cases of mere exposure to improper influences, we understand to be this: Where evidence is adduced, and shows that the jury were not in any way influenced, biased or prejudiced by the exposure, the verdict will not be disturbed; but unless it is proven that it failed of an effect, the presumption will be against the purity of the trial, and the verdict will be set aside.\u201d\nWhat improper influences may have had an effect upon the views of the jury, can not be known. That they were exposed to none, can not with certainty be said.\nSuch conduct can not be too strongly reprehended and condemned. It was trifling with a most serious and important duty, and calculated to throw doubt and suspicion upon the fairness of the trial, and to degrade the administration of justice; and for it, as well as for the error before noticed, the verdict should have been set aside.\nThe judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded, with instructions to grant the defendant a new trial.", "type": "majority", "author": "Harrison, J." } ], "attorneys": [ "Henderson\u00a1 Attorney Q-enerctl, for the State." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "Wood vs. The State.\n1. Larceny : Drunkenness, when a defense.\nIf one, at the time of taking property, is so under the influence of intoxicating liquor that a felonious intent can not be formed in his mind, he is not guilty of larceny.\n2. Criminal Practice: New trial for improper conduct of jury.\nWhen evidence is adduced, and shows that a juiy, in a criminal case, exposed to improper influences, were not in any way influenced, biased or prejudiced by the exposure, the verdict will not be disturbed; but unless it is proven that it failed of an effect, the verdict will be set aside.\nAPPEAL from Johnson Circuit Court.\nHon. W. L. Jacoway, Circuit Judge.\nHenderson\u00a1 Attorney Q-enerctl, for the State." }, "file_name": "0341-01", "first_page_order": 343, "last_page_order": 348 }