v.
HANSEN
Lead Opinion
Opinion by
Section 706, Hill’s Code, provides that evidence may be given on the trial of the following facts: “10. * * * the opinion of an intimate acquaintance respecting the mental sanity of a person, the reason for the opinion being given.” It is not every acquaintance that is competent to give an opinion in such cases, but it must be one who has close social relations with the person whose mental condition is the subject of inquiry. There are, however, degrees of intimacy, and it is within the discretion of the trial court to say when the witness has shown himself competent and qualified to express an opinion upon the subject, and this discretion, when exercised, will not be reviewed except in case of abuse: People v. Pico, 62 Cal. 52; People v. Levy, 71 Cal. 618, 12 Pac. Rep. 794; State v. Murray, 11 Or. 413. But even if reviewable and found to have been exercised erroneously, the defendant could not have been injured by this evidence, for the reason that it was confined to the defendant’s symptoms, and that the sheriff’s opinion was predicated upon [*396] his mental condition on the day after the alleged homicide. The fact that he did not have the symptoms of a person suffering from an attack of delirum tremens, and was not then, in the opinion. of the officer, insane, did not prove that at the time the act was committed he was not laboring under an insane delusion. The most that can be claimed for it is, that it might strengthen the inference that if the defendant did not have those symptoms, and was not, in the opinion of the witness, insane the day after the commission of the act, that, therefore, he was sane when it was committed. It is within the discretion of the trial court to admit evidence upon the question of the sanity of the person accused, at the time of committing an .offense, and of his acts, conduct, and habits at a subsequent time which would fairly justify any inference of insanity relating back to the time of the alleged offense: Commonwealth v. Coe, 115 Mass. 481; Commonwealth v. Pomeroy, 117 Mass. 143.
“On Wednesday, July twenty-sixth, last, I was duly sober all day. I left Burnside’s scow about half past six and went home and met my wife coming from Svenson’s; when I got in the house I laid down on the sofa. She said if you don’t go to work I will kill you. I said I have been out fishing all night, and I now want to rest. I then went up stairs to bed. I slept then until the steamer Miler whistled. In the afternoon, about fifteen [*397] minutes after three, I then got up and went down stairs to urinate, and my wife was then sitting in front of the house. After I got through urinating I went up stairs again and laid down in the bed until about forty-five minutes after three. I went down stairs again, and my wife told me to help her pick berries. I said I have little time, but I will help you, anyhow, but I want to give the chickens water first. My wife was then in the raspberry patch alongside of the chicken-house picking berries. I then helped her pick berries. While we were picking berries, she said: If you don’t leave the place I will kill you. I said, I don’t want to leave. She then picked up a rock and throwed it at me. I had a stick and an ax standing by the chicken-house, with the intention of driving it out in the pasture to tie the calf on. The stick was about three feet long with a knot close to the end. I struck her with that stick, and the knotty part hit her on the head. I was standing behind her a little to the left, and she was stooping down a little picking berries. She never said nothing after she fell in the place where she was found. I staid there with her until she was dead. I then went back to the house and staid there about two minutes, and then went back again to where my wife laid and looked at her, and then went away again. It was about forty-five minutes after four. I then went to the tide land and notified John Nylund, and told him the same as I testified to at the coroner’s inquest. After I came back from the tide land, before Nylund got to the house, I chopped part of the stick I killed my wife with and put it in the woodbox, and that evening burned it up in the stove.
“John Hansen.
“ Signed in the presence of:
“H. A. Smith.
“F. I. Dunbar.
[*398] “Doneon Saturday morning, July twenty-ninth, eighteen hundred and ninety-three.”
The following statement was made by the defendant and added to the confession, but was not signed by him: “After she was dead and lying where she was found, I took the keys out of my wife’s right-hand pocket of her dress, and I went in the house and opened the lower drawer of the bureau to look for some papers, and found a bottle of kimmell. There was about one good swallow in the bottle, and I drank that, and then took out the keys and put them in the upper drawer, but I never opened it. I was duly sober and in good humor.”
The confession was introduced in evidence by the state, which also called Peter Svenson, who testified that defendant, while in jail, and after he had seen his counsel, in speaking of the alleged homicide, admitted “ that he did it,” and said: “There was a club lying there that was to change the calf in the pasture, and he took up that club to change the calf, and all of a sudden he had an impulse and took the club and hit his wife over the head. He said he had no cause for it whatever, and he didn’t know at that minute what he done it for, but he said he done it, and he didn’t hardly know how it happened himself at the time.” The latter confession materially differed from the former, and tended to support the theory of the defense. In offering it in evidence on the part of the prosecution, the witness was permitted to testify that it was made by the defendant after consultation with his counsel. This it is contended was error. No evidence was offered of what was said at any time between the defendant and his counsel. How, then, was he prejudiced by proof of the fact that his counsel visited and conferred with him ? He had a right to employ and consult counsel in order to prepare for his defense. The bill of exceptions does not show that counsel for the state [*399] alluded to or commented upon this fact in the argument, or that defendant took exceptions to any argument tending to lead the jury to infer that the theory of the defense was formulated at the time defendant and his counsel had this conference. The question to which the testimony objected to was a response was asked in the cross-examination of the defendant’s witness upon a collateral matter, and in such case it is largely within the discretion of the trial court to say to what extent the inquiry shall be extended: Greenleaf on Evidence, § 449.
The seventh and tenth instructions given by the court are as follows:—
“7th. It is not every crochet or mere crankiness, or eccentricity of mind, however well established, that will excuse the commission of an act, otherwise criminal. If a party, notwithstanding some mental disease or infirmity, still has reason enough to know the act which he purposes to commit is wrong and unlawful, and knows its nature and quality, and has left the power of deliberation and premeditation, and the power to do or refrain from doing the act charged as a crime, such mental disease will not avail as a defense. In other words, while the law will not punish a man for an act which is the result of or produced by mental disease, it will punish him for an unlawful act not the result of or produced or influenced by mental disease, even though some mental unsoundness is shown to have existed. Voluntary drunkenness is no excuse for a crime, and our statute provides that no act shall be any less criminal by reason of the fact that the party committing it was in a state of voluntary intoxication. You can, therefore, only consider intoxication in determining whether or not the defendant was in such a state of mind as to be capable of having an intent to kill, and in determining whether there was premeditation, deliberation, malice, or cool blood. ‘ There shall be some other evidence of malice than the mere proof of the killing, to constitute murder in the first degree, unless the killing was effected in the commission or attempt to commit a felony; and deliberation and premeditation, when necessary to constitute murder in the [*402] first degree, shall be evidenced by poisoning, lying in wait, or some other proof that the design was formed and matured in cool blood, and not hastily upon the occasion.’ But if deliberation, premeditation, malice, or cool blood existed, and the killing was the result of them, the fact, if it be a fact, that he was intoxicated, or under the influence of liquor, when he committed'the alleged homicide, if you find that he did commit it, is no defense; that is to say, if he was too much intoxicated or too insane to deliberate or premeditate, you cannot convict him of murder in the first degree. If he was too much intoxicated to have an intent to kill, you cannot convict him of murder in the second degree, and if, from all the testimony in the case, you have a reasonable doubt on these subjects, you should give him the benefit of such doubt; but beyond this you cannot go; remembering all the time that the law presumes every man sane and sober until the contrary state is shown to exist.” “10th. This is a criminal case, and, before you can convict the defendant, you must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged in this indictment; that is to say, if you have a reasonable doubt as to any fact that would be necessary to constitute murder in the first degree, you could not convict him of murder in the first degree. If you have a reasonable doubt as to the deliberation, premeditation, malice, or purpose, you could not convict him; if you have a reasonable doubt as to the malice and purpose, you could not convict him of murder in the second degree. He has the right to the benefit of a reasonable doubt at all stages of the case. But by reasonable doubt is not meant every possible doubt that may arise in a man’s mind, because there is nothing but what is open to some possible doubt. It has been defined as a doubt that leaves your mind in that condition that [*403] you cannot say you have an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty of the truth of the charge, and, therefore, of the guilt of the defendant. It must be a doubt arising naturally out of the facts of the case. It is not a mere imaginary doubt, conjured up from your sympathies or from your prejudices, or to escape the consequences of a verdict, but it must be a substantial doubt,— such a doubt as would cause you to pause and hesitate upon the most important affairs of your life. If you have such a doubt, you should give the defendant the benefit of it. If you have a doubt whether he killed the deceased or not, or whether the blow was the cause of the killing, or if you are satisfied the killing was unlawful, but if you have a doubt as to what degree it is, you should acquit him of the degree concerning which you have a reasonable doubt. You should give the defendant the benefit of all reasonable doubts; and there is no technical way of judging it, other than using your ordinary, plain, common sense and judgment. You are to take this testimony and judge it as a whole, weighing all the facts in the case.” In State v. Johnson, 8 Iowa, 525, 74 Am. Dec. 321, an instruction had been given that failed to contain the element of premeditation, in defining the crime of murder in the first degree. The bill of exceptions in that case did not include the other instructions, and it nowhere appeared that this element had been correctly defined, yet the court, in commenting upon the probability of the correct interpretation of the element of premeditation being contained in the other instructions, say, “ if it so appeared from the record, we might be justified in holding, taking the instructions together, that there was no prejudice to the prisoner’s cause from its omission in the third instruction.” “ It is not contended,” says Seevees, O. J., “that every proposition should be accompanied with or qualified by the [*404] doctrine of reasonable doubt. It is sufficient if the court says that every fact necessary to convict must be established to their satisfaction beyond a reasonable doubt”: State v. Maloy, 44 Iowa, 104. If then the omission of the word reasonable made the instruction too general, it was properly limited by others.
The remaining question is directed to the inquiry, Is it probable that the jury was misled by the omission? Whenever .the instructions, considered as a whole, are substantially correct, and could not have misled the jury to the prejudice of the defendant, the judgment will not be reversed because some instruction, considered alone, may be subject to criticism: People v. Cleveland, 49 Cal. 577; Story v. State, 99 Ind. 413. It must be presumed that each member of the jury possessed, at least, ordinary common sense, and was capable of understanding the whole charge in its connected relations, and in its application to the facts of the case: People v. Bagnell, 31 Cal. 409. The instructions given by the court fully state the law as applicable to the facts of the case at bar, and the judgment ought not to be reversed except for some palpable error which would afford a dangerous precedent: Stout v. State, 90 Ind. 1. Courts owe a duty to persons accused of the commission of crime, to see that they have a speedy, fair, and impartial trial in the mode prescribed by law, and, while this is true, they also owe a duty to society to suppress crime and punish those who have been legally convicted thereof. In the discharge of this duty we are not unmindful of the importance of avoiding the adoption of any rule which might become dangerous as a precedent, but we fail to see that any dangerous precedent would be established by adopting the rule that instructions should, in criminal as well as in civil cases; be considered in their entirety, and that a single instruction which might be subject to the criticism of being too [*405] general, when not Misleading, furnishes no just reason for reversing a judgment, when properly • limited by other instructions that correctly state the law.
The questions presented by these requests are embodied in the seventh instruction given by the court. That portion of section 1358 of Hill's Code applicable to the question of intoxication as a defense is as follows: “Whenever the actual existence of any particular motive, purpose, or intent is a necessary element to constitute any particular species or degree of crime, the jury may take into consideration the fact that the defendant was intoxicated at the time in determining the purpose, motive, or intent with which he committed the act.” It will be observed that the instruction given by the court omitted the words “purpose and motive” and limited the inquiry to the defendant’s state of mind as to whether, from the effect of intoxication, he was capable of having an intent to kill. His motive for the act may have been to acquire personal gain or to gratify his anger or revenge, and yet, if he were too intoxicated to premeditate and deliberate upon an intent to kill, he could-not have been convicted of murder in the first degree, as the court charged the jury. The intent with which he committed the act, and not the motive or purpose, is the test of his criminal liability in determining the degree of his guilt, and hence, under the evidence in the case, the omission of these words could not have been prejudicial to his rights, under the instruction given by the court. Had self-defense been the issue, as indicated in the first confession, then the motive and purpose of the act might have been material questions, but this theory was abandoned, and the defense of an insane, irresistible impulse was substituted therefor, in which motive and purpose, under the evidence in the case, did not form an element.
Defendant’s counsel also contends that the court erred in failing to give the following instructions requested by the defendant: “7th. The deliberate use of a deadly [*408] weapon by the defendant, and the fact that he killed the deceased with it, without further proof of deliberation and premeditation, is not sufficient to constitute murder in the first degree; therefore, if you should find that the defendant purposely and maliciously killed the deceased, by the deliberate use of a deadly weapon, but that there is no other proof of deliberation and premeditation than the fact of the killing, and the deliberate use of such weapon in killing her, or, if you entertain a reasonable doubt in this respect, you cannot find him guilty of murder in the first degree, but of murder in the second degree only.” “10 th. I further charge you that in order to find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, you must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that he was in such a condition of mind as to be able to deliberate and premeditate; and you must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, by evidence in addition to the mere fact of the killing of the deceased, and the deliberate use of a deadly weapon, that in so doing he did it of deliberate and premeditated malice, otherwise you cannot find him guilty of murder in the first degree.” In the seventh instruction, the court charged the jury that there must be other evidence of malice than the mere proof of killing to constitute murder in the first degree, and fully covered these requests.
Aitibhed.'
Rehearing
[*411] On Rehearing.
[36 Pac. 296.]
Opinion by
The defendant, in his petition for a rehearing, contends that the state, having, as part of its case, introduced evidence of the defendant’s mental condition, tending to raise an inference that he was, at the time of committing the act charged, incapable of forming a design, and this inference having been strengthened by the evidence for the defendant, that, therefore, the burden of proof was upon the state to establish the defendant’s sanity beyond a reasonable doubt, and not upon the defendant to establish his insanity by the same degree of proof. In State v. Hill, 14 Southern R. 294, the supreme court of Louisiana held that, though the state had introduced evidence tending to show incapacity to form a design to kill, the defense was, nevertheless, special, and, like any other, must be proved by the party urging it, to the satisfaction of the jury, and that it was not the duty of the state to. prove a negative by showing beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant’s state of intoxication was of a degree not to interfere with his judgment and intelligence, or preclude the possibility of his entertaining malice towards the deceased. In State v. Coleman, 27 La. Ann. 691, the following charge was held to be undoubtedly correct: “ Drunkenness is no excuse for a crime, and any state of mind resulting from drunkenness, unless it be a permanent and continuous result, still leaves the person responsible for his acts.” The court properly charged the jury that the defendant must have had sufficient mind to know that the contemplated act was wrong, and sufficient will power to refrain from its commission, and the jury, under proper instruc [*412] tions, having found against the defendant upon these questions, the petition for a rehearing must be denied.
Affirmed.