Title: Snipes v. State
Citation: 307 N.E.2d 470
Docket Number: 274S45
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: February 28, 1974

307 N.E.2d 470 (1974)
Robert S. SNIPES, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
No. 274S45.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
February 28, 1974.
Rice &amp; VanStone, William E. Weikert, Evansville, for appellant.
Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Robert F. Colker, Asst. Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
GIVAN, Justice.
Appellant has petitioned this Court to grant transfer from a decision of the Court of Appeals affirming his conviction of the offense of armed robbery.
The opinion of the Court of Appeals contains the erroneous statement that "robbery is not a `specific intent' crime."
This Court has recently stated that all of the common law malum in se crimes have always included the mens rea as an element. Gregory v. State (1973), Ind., 291 N.E.2d 67, 34 Ind.Dec. 593.
The question in the case at bar arose because of the giving of the State's Tendered Instruction No. 3 which reads as follows:
The above instruction was taken from the case of Madden v. State (1970), 254 Ind. 628, 632, 261 N.E.2d 847, 22 Ind.Dec. 591, where this Court quoted the above language with approval.
The correct statement of the law in Indiana concerning voluntary intoxication as a defense was set out in Emler v. State (1972), Ind., 286 N.E.2d 408, 412, 32 Ind.Dec. 337, 341, and reads as follows:
The Madden case is, therefore, specifically overruled for the reason that the above quoted instruction therein approved is erroneous in that it fails to state that intoxication may be a defense, if the defendant was so intoxicated as to be unable to form the specific intent necessary for the commission of a crime.
In the case at bar the objection of the appellant to the giving of State's Instruction No. 3 was not ideal, but it was sufficient to call the court's attention to the fact that the instruction was not correct notwithstanding the erroneous statement in Madden, supra.
Transfer is, therefore, granted. The trial court is reversed and is directed to grant the appellant's motion for a new trial.
ARTERBURN, C.J., and DeBRULER, HUNTER and PRENTICE, JJ., concur.