Case ID: ohio_14/html/555, 556-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Read, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Nathaniel Pigman v. The State of Ohio.
    Drunkenness of the accused, at the time of passing the alleged counterfeit hill, is a circumstance proper to he submitted to the consideration of the jury, and should have its just weight in determining whether-the accused knew the hill to he counterfeit.
    This is a writ of error to the court of common pleas of Marion county.
    The plaintiff in error was indicted for uttering, publishing, bartering, and disposing of counterfeit bank bills. The proof was the passing of a counterfeit bank bill of twenty dollars. A verdict of guilty was found by the jury, and the plaintiff was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in the penitentiary.
    A. number of errors are assigned. But the one chiefly relied upon, or at all available, as disclosed in the bill of exceptions, is, that the court ruled out evidence offered by the accused, to show that he was drunk at the time he passed the bill, and therefore did not know what he was doing, or that the bill was counterfeit.
    *The case was argued for the defendant by James H. God-
    MAN.
    ' No argument was submitted for the plaintiff.
   Read, J.

Drunkenness is no excuse for crime; yet, in that class of crimes and offenses which depend upon guilty knowledge,, or the coolness and deliberation with which they shall have been, perpetrated, to constitute their commission, or fix the dogree of. guilt, it should be submitted to the consideration of the jury. If this act is of that nature that the law requires it should be done with guilty knowledge, or tho degree of guilt depends upon tho calm and deliberate state of tho mind at the time of the commission of the act, it is proper to show any state or condition of the person that is adverse to the px’oper exercise of the mind, and the undisturbed possession of the faculties. The older writers regarded, drunkenness as an aggravation of the offense, and excluded it for any purpose. It is a high crime against one’s self, and offensive to society and good morals; yet every man knows that acts may bo committed in a fit of intoxication which would bo abhorred in sober moments. And it seems strange that any one should ever have imagined that a person who committed an act from the effect of drink, which he would not have done if sober, is worse- than tho man who commits it from'sober and deliberate intent. The law regards an act done in sudden heat, in a moment of frenzy, when passion has dethroned reason, as less criminal than the same act when performed in the cool and undisturbed possession of all the faculties. There is nothing the law so much abhors as the cool, deliberate, and settled purpose to do mischief. That is tho quality of a demon ; whilst that which is done on great excitement, as when the mind is broken up by poison or intoxication, although, to be punished, may, to some extent, be softened and sot down to tho infirmities of human nature. Hence — not regarding it as an aggravation — drunkenness, as anything else showing the state of mind or degree of knowledge, should go to the jury. Upon this principle, in modern cases, it has been ^permitted to bo shown that the accused was drunk when ho perpetrated the crime of killing, to rebut the idea that it was done in a cool and deliberate state of the mind, necessary to constitute murder in the first degree. Tho principle is undoubtedly right. So, on a charge of passing counterfeit money; if the person was so drunk that he act. ually did not know that he had passed a bill that was counterfeit, ho is not guilty. It oftentimes requires much skill to detect a counterfeit. The crime of passing counterfeit money, consists of knowingly passing it. To rebut that knowledge, or to enable the jury to judge rightly of the matter, it is competent for the person chai’ged to show that he was drunk at tho time he passed the bill. It is a circumstance, among others, entitled to its just weight.

Judgment reversed, and cause remanded.