Court Opinion

ID: 9862789
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:11:17.091977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:33:15.034935
License: Public Domain

Tomlinson, Justice
(concurring).
Due to the studious dissenting opinion so ably presented, I am constrained to briefly state in simple and layman-like language why I am concurring with the majority opinion in this case.
In the beginning, I wish to correct, in so far as I am concerned, a statement in the dissenting opinion that “the majority seems to think a woman must be pregnant before a conviction can be had under the Statute’ ’ making an attempt to commit an abortion a criminal offense. I do not understand this to be the position of the majority. Certainly it is not mine.
We are not dealing here with whether Dupuy intended to commit an abortion. We are dealing with whether there is evidence that he attempted to commit that abortion.
In the numerous conferences had in this case, and as stressed in the dissenting opinion, much has been said about an overt act, and that if Dupuy went so far as to commit an overt act, that act amounted to an attempt to commit the crime. I have no quarrel with that position.
*630It follows, therefore, that in so far as it applies to this case, the expression “overt act” is used interchangeably with, and with the same meaning, as the word “attempt”. For clarity, therefore, I will use the word “attempt”, rather than the word “overt act”.
If I correctly understand the dissenting* opinion, and I do not believe it is capable of a different interpretation, it is that Dnpuy is guilty of an attempt to commit this crime, because the jury says he is. In my opinion, the law is, and has always been, that if there is no evidence to support the jury’s say, then it is the duty of the Court to set aside that say of the jury.
In support of its position, the dissenting* opinion cites Johnson v. State, 125 Tenn. 420, 423, 143 S.W. 1134, 1137, Ann.Cas. 1913C, 261, to the effect that, in the language of the dissenting opinion, “in this State an overt act”, (an attempt) “is * * * a question for the jury.” This Johnson case was dealing with a homicide case in which the insistence was self defense. The question there was whether the defendant was justified in concluding that he was being* approached by another with an intent to do him great bodily harm. If the jury so found then defendant’s subsequent act was self defense. And the Court said, 125 Tenn. at page 434, 143 S.W. at page 1137, that whether the defendant was justified in believing that he was approached with such intent was a jury question. Intent was a very important factor in that homicide case. But here again, I call attention to the fact that in this case it is not a question of intent. It is a question of attempt.
The Johnson case refers as authority for its ruling Jackson v. State, 65 Tenn. 452. That also was a homi*631cide case, in which was involved the important question of intent, rather than attempt, the question with which we are concerned in this present case. In that case the Court did say, at page 461, that: ‘ ‘ The rule that it is the province of the judge to decide if there is any evidence is, no doubt, a correct one when properly applied”. That rule, of course, applies to the question of an attempt, as well as the question of intent. That is, if there is no evidence of an attempt, or if the evidence, as a matter of law, negatives such a conclusion, then it is the duty of the Court to so hold, regardless of the fact that the jury said it was an attempt. There ought to be no controversy as to the accuracy of that statement.
In the case at bar the evidence is that Dupuy and this woman got in an automobile into which he put a kit containing the instruments with which he intended to commit the abortion. They then drove to this motel. After they entered the room, Dupuy took the instruments from the kit, placed them on the bed or table and the parties engaged in conversation while each drank beer or coca cola. Then he filled his hypodermic needle, and suggested that she disrobe. Thereupon, she in effect said, by walking out of the room, that she had changed her mind about having an abortion committed on her.
The above evidence, says the jury, amounted to an attempt to commit an abortion. And the learned dissenting opinion says that it amounted to such an attempt because the jury said it did.
Let it be assumed that instead of the woman changing her intent after Dupuy had suggested that she disrobe, he, Dupuy, as she started to disrobe said to her “I have changed my mind, I am not going to perform that abor*632tion”, and walked out. Is there any one who wonld claim that what he did amounted to an attempt to commit an abortion, because the jury said it did? Yet, it cannot be distinguished, on principle, from the facts which did happen as stated just above. It was simply the one, rather than the other, who .abandoned the mutual intent.
Or, let it be assumed that on the way out to this motel after Dupuy had put his instruments in the car, this lady had caused the automobile to be stopped and she got out with a statement that she had abandoned the intent, would Dupuy then be guilty .of an attempt to commit an abortion because the jury said he was? Yet, the case here supposed is no different, on principle, from that which actually occurred from which the jury made its say which my learned Associate thereby considers binding on this Court.
If what Dupuy did amounts to an attempt, then, to use a very simple illustration, a man who puts a pistol in his pocket with the declared intention of killing a named victim and go searching for that victim but fails to shoot him because he cannot find the intended, but hiding, victim, then that man is guilty of an attempt to commit murder, because a jury said he was. This, in my opinion, is inconceivable. But it cannot, in my opinion, be distinguished from the case at bar.
In my opinion, there is no evidence to support the verdict of the jury. Hence, this Court has done no more than is required of it in setting that verdict aside.