Case Name: State of Louisiana vs. Nicholas Kraemer
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1897-03-01
Citations: 49 La. Ann. 766
Docket Number: No. 12,412
Parties: State of Louisiana vs. Nicholas Kraemer.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Annual Reports
Volume: 49
Pages: 766–775

Head Matter:
No. 12,412.
State of Louisiana vs. Nicholas Kraemer.
On Rums.
The court again affirms that on the question of the exceptions reserved by the counsel of the accused, the bills brought up and the statement of the trial judge must control us on the appeal. State vs. Romero, 5 An. 24=; State vs. Lacombet 12 An. 195.
ON the Mebits.
If a person being in possession of his mental faculties voluntarily gets into a fit of drunkenness, and during such drunkenness commits a homicide under a diseased mental condition occasioned by the same, he can not set up said diseased mental condition as an excuse for his act.
In order that a man should stand excused for a homicide committed during drunkenness, and while in a diseased mental condition, the diseased mental condition which excuses the homicide should be able to be successfully urged as an excuse for the act of getting drunk.
It is as possible for an insane man to get drunk asa sane man. The addition of drunkenness to insanity does not withdraw from such 'person the protection due to insanity, but when such a person commits a homicide during drunkenness reliance must be placed upon the original insanity itself, not the subsequent drunkenness.
APPEAL from the Criminal District Oourb for the Parish of Orleans. Baker, J.
M. J. Cunningham, Attorney General, and B. Ii. Marr, District Attorney, for Plaintiff, Appellee.
Paul W. Mount and James Wilkinson for Defendant, Appellant.
Submitted on rule for production of instructions February 15,1897.
Opinion handed down March 1, 1897.
On Rule.
Submitted on briefs March 6, 1897.
Opinion handed down March 15, 1897.

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Miller, J.
The relator seeks by this application to compel the clerk of the Criminal District Court to transmit the request made of the lower court on behalf of the accused, to give certain instructions to the jury that tried him. The relator's petition alleges that these instructions were asked, refused and exceptions reserved to the refusal.
The return of the clerk, in which the judge joins, is that but one bill was reserved, which we find in the record.
The judge states besides that although no bill was reserved other than that signed, he offered to counsel to sign a bill reserving all the exceptions the counsel claims to have reserved, bat he did not avail of this offer. We find in the record but one bill and the statement of the judge, that bill exhibits the only point reserved.
We have often had occasion to observe that we must be guided on questions of the character raised here, by the bills we find in the record and the statement of the judge. We must apply that rule in this ease.
It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed that the relator's application be denied and our previous order on his petition be set aside.