Court Opinion

ID: 9683209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:24:36.188237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:46.242900
License: Public Domain

TATE, Justice.
Defendant was convicted of a violation of Article 122 of the Criminal Code (LSA-R.S. 14:122), “Public Intimidation”, and sentenced to five years in the State Penitentiary.
Defendant appeals from said conviction upon the sole ground that there was a total absence of any evidence as to his guilt of the crime charged. This question is raised by a bill of exceptions reserved as to the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion for a new trial following his conviction,1 to which bill the entire transcript of testimony was attached.
An examination of the evidence attached to the bill discloses that the incident forming the basis of this charge occurred on February 22, 1958, when defendant was a convict inmate at the State Penitentiary at Angola. (He has since been paroled.) On the evening in question, according to Otis Edwards, a correctional officer in charge of defendant’s dormitory, defendant was out of line on the way to the evening *1004meal. Defendant having ignored Edwards’ instructions to go to the end of the chow line, Edwards testified he grabbed defendant by the upper arm, following which defendant swung and hit him. This use of force upon the prison guard by defendant is the basis of the present criminal charge.
The crime of “Public Intimidation” is defined by Article 122 of the Criminal Code as follows:
“Public intimidation is the use of violence, force, or threats, upon any of the following persons, with the intent to influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment, or duty:
“(1) Public officer or public employee ; or
“(2) Grand or petit juror; or
“(3) Witness-, or person about to be called as a witness upon a trial or other proceeding before any court, board or officer authorized to hear evidence or to take testimony; or
“(4) Voter or election official at any general, primary, or special election.
“Whoever commits the crime of public intimidation shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars, or imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than five years, or both.” (Italics ours.)
Conceding that the evidence shows defendant used force upon Edwards2 and that Edwards was- a public employee, counsel for defendant nevertheless urges that the conviction should be set aside because there is a total absence of evidence to prove that defendant hit Edwards “with the intent to influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment, or duty.” (Italics ours.)
The State argues that only general criminal intent must be proved to support a conviction: that is; the reasonable and probable result of defendant’s battery upon the prison guard under the circumstances being (it is argued) to influence the conduct of that public employee with regard to his duties, defendant is presumed to have contemplated these ordinary and natural consequences of his battery when he committed same. LSA-R.S. 14:8(2) (“general criminal intent”) ; cf. State v. Johnston, 207 La. 161, 20 So.2d 741.
It is further pointed out that “though intent is a question of fact, it need not be proven as- a fact, it may be inferred from the circumstances of the transaction,” LSA-R.S. IS :445. We are reminded of the well settled jurisprudence that “ ‘It is only where there is no evidence at all upon some essential element of crime charged that [the court] may set aside a verdict.’ * * * But ‘Where there is some evidence *1006to sustain the conviction, no matter how-little, this court cannot pass upon the sufficiency thereof. That comes within the exclusive province of the trial judge and jury/” State v. McDonell, 208 La. 602, 23 So.2d 230, 231.
Pretermitting entirely whether the disciplinary problems of penal institutions were ever intended by the legislature to be within the purview of the statute, the State’s contention that the crime of public intimidation may be committed with general criminal intent and without specific criminal intent is untenable.
Article 11 of the Criminal Code (LSA-R.S. 14:11) provides:
“The definitions of some crimes require a specific criminal intent, while in others- no intent is required. Some crimes consist merely of criminal negligence that produces criminal consequences. However, in the absence of qualifying provisions, the terms ‘intent’ and ‘intentional’ have reference to ‘general criminal intent.’ ” (Italics ours.)
The statutory definition of the crime of the public intimidation provides that it is the use of force upon a public employee “with intent to influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment, or duty.” (Italics ours-.) The italicized provisions (“to influence”, etc.) qualify the intent statutorily required to commit the crime defined.3 The statutory crime is thus not the intentional use of force or threats upon a public employee, but rather the use of force or threats upon him with the specific intent to influence his conduct in relation to his duties.
Specific criminal intent is defined by Article 10(1) of our Criminal Code (LSA-R.S. 14:10(1))':
“Specific criminal intent is that state of mind which exists when the circumstances indicate that the offender actively desired the prescribed criminal consequences to follow his act or failure to act.” (Italics ours.)
It is contradistinguished from general criminal intent, which exists “when the circumstances indicate that the offender, in the ordinary course of human experience, must have adverted to the prescribed criminal consequences as reasonably certain to result from his act or failure to act,” Article 10(2), Criminal Code (LSA-R.S. 14:-10(2)).
*1008In short, specific intent is present when from the circumstances the offender must have subjectively desired the prohibited result; whereas general intent exists when from the circumstances the prohibited result may reasonably be expected to follow from the offender’s voluntary act, irrespective of any subjective desire to have accomplished such result.
Applied to the present case, it was necessary for the State to prove that the defendant “actively desired” when he hit the prison guard “to influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment, or duty.”
There is a total absence of any evidence in the record as to this requisite specific intent on the part of defendant. The testimony of the prosecuting witness, Edwards, indicates simply that the defendant struck him, crying “No, you don’t push me around, not here,” when said witness grabbed defendant by the upper arm to repeat his instructions to the latter to go to the end of the line.4 This prosecuting witness on cross-examination candidly admitted that the defendant did not strike him to induce him to do or not to do anything.5 (The only other witnesses testify*1010ing as to the event — all convicts or former convicts testifying on behalf of defendant, whom it was well within the province of the trial court to disbelieve — told of an unprovoked attack on the defendant on the part of the prison guard.) Defendant’s specific intent to commit the statutory crime cannot be presumed from the naked fact that he hit the prison guard.
“Where a specific intent is an element of a crime, the specific intent must be proved as an independent fact and cannot be presumed from the commission of the unlawful act,” 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 32, p. 91. See: Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288; 1 Wharton’s Criminal Evidence (12th ed., 1955) Section 131 at p. 244.
“The intent with which a harmful act is done is usually not expressed in words, and the jury is permitted to draw such inferences of intent as are warranted under all the circumstances of the particular case, but there is no presumption of law, either conclusive or disputable, that an act was done with any specific intent, unless some statute provides for such presumption in the trial of a particular offense,” Perkins, Criminal Law (1957) p. 674. (Italics ours.)
The State’s argument that the trial court’s apparent determination that the defendant specifically intended by hitting the prison guard to influence his conduct presents a non-reviewable factual matter, overlooks that such inference under the circumstances of this case and the legal principles above enunciated is unjustified and cannot as a matter of law prove the State’s case. A specific intent cannot be presumed from an unlawful act which does not naturally bespeak the intent. Anderson, Wharton’s Criminal Law and Procedure (1957) Section 60, pp. 135-6. As stated in a leading case on the subject, Hubbard v. United States, 9 Cir., 1935, 79 F.2d 850 at page 853: “The color of the act determines the complexion of the intent only *1012in those situations where common experience has found a reliable correlation between a particular act and a corresponding intent.” The instantaneous 'and angered blow by defendant herein responsive to the guard’s shove does not by itself reliably indicate the requisite specific intent to commit the serious crime with which defendant is charged.
Thus, in disposing of somewhat similar legal contentions in State v. Nomey, 204 La. 667, 16 So.2d 226, where we set aside a conviction of a storekeeper for unlawfully keeping alcoholic beverages for sale in a dry parish, we held that the only evidence in the transcript was that the whiskey, wine, and beer were kept in the living quarters in the rear of the store and that there was no evidence whatsoever of any proven facts or circumstances tending to show that the defendant was keeping such alcoholic beverages for sale. See In re Glassberg, 230 La. 396, 88 So.2d 707 (conviction of juvenile as a delinquent for having committed an aggravated battery set aside because no factual proof whatsoever of the requisite general intent, i. e., the intentional pulling of the trigger.) Cf., also, State v. Fulco, 194 La. 545, 194 So. 14.
The case of Simpson v. State, 1921, 81 Fla. 292, 87 So. 920, 922, furnishes a pertinent illustration of the appellate review of proof of specific intent. In that case, a conviction of breaking and entering a dwelling house with “intent to 'commit rape” was set aside because although the breaking and entering' was proved, the requisite specific intent was not proved and was not reasonably to be inferred under the circumstances therein from the mere fact that the defendant broke into a woman’s bedroom. See also Banovitch v. Commonwealth, 196 Va. 210, 83 S.E.2d 369,, Hargrove v. United States, 5 Cir., 1933, 67 F.2d 820, 90 A.L.R. 1276.
In conclusion, there is a total absence of evidence as to facts and circumstances surrounding the battery committed by the' defendant upon the public employee from which it might reasonably be inferred that such battery was committed with the specific criminal intent to influence the employee’s conduct with regard to his duties, within the meaning of the Public Intimidation article (Art. 122) of the Criminal' Code. There being a total absence of' proof as to this essential element of the crime with which defendant is charged, the-conviction must be set aside and the defendant ordered discharged. State v. La Borde, 234 La. 28, 99 So.2d 11. See, also: State v. Sbisa, 232 La. 961, 95 So.2d 619, State v. Harrell, 232 La. 35, 93 So.2d 684.
For the foregoing reasons-, the judgment appealed from is annulled and set aside and appellant is ordered discharged.
HAWTHORNE, J., dissents.
McCALEB, J., dissents with written reasons.

. The only other bill of exception reserved was to the trial court’s overruling of defendant’s motion in arrest of judgment, also based upon the alleged total absence of any evidence to prove an essential element of the crime. Properly speaking, the motion in arrest of judgment lies only for a substantial defect patent on tlie face of the record which can be ascertained without an examination of the evidence. LSA-R.S. 15:517, 518; State v. Capaci, 179 La. 462, 154 So. 419, at syllabi 29-31.

. Which may, for instance, have proved commission of a simple battery, LSA-R.S. 14:35, punishable by up to two years in the parish prison. (Italics ours.)

. The Reporter’s Comment to Article 11, Criminal Code, specifically lists as an illustration of a specific intent the commission of an offense “with intent to defraud.” It is appropriate to take into consideration these reporters’ comments to the Criminal Code, which have legislative sanction, in the interpretation and construction of the articles therein. State v. Broadnax, 216 La. 1003, 45 So.2d 604; State v. Brown, 214 La. 18, 36 So.2d 624; State v. Truby, 211 La. 178, 29 So. 2d 758.

. Edwards’ full account of the incident is as follows:
“Well, on this particular evening I was turning out for feed. They have a rule down there that they will line up in a single line, single file going to chow, and they must hold that line, and in case that one breaks tlie line we tell him to get back in line, and in case he don’t, why, we have the authority to send them to the tail-end of the line before chow. This evening Freddie Daniels was out of the line out in the middle of the road, passing the whole line. I told him twice to get back in line. Weli, he didn’t get in line and I went up the walk, overtaken him and took him by the upper part of his arm right here at the shoulder and told him to go to the tail of the line. At that time, he shoved me on the shoulder and said, “No, you donff push me around, not here,” and drawed his fist back to hit me.
“Q. What happened then? A. Well, at that time, when I seen that he was going to hit me and had started his swing, well, I swung, too, to knock his lick off to protect myself.
“Q. Well, what happened? A. Well, we both hit, and he knocked me to my knees and hands, and when I got up, he started down the walk, and I told him that—and I told him that was all right. I immediately went to the phone and called Captain D. J. Derrick, my supervisor. (Tr. 14^15)
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“Q. To recapitulate your testimony, was that when you took- hold of him to try to make him go to the end of the line? A. Well, when I taken ahold of him on the arm and told him to take the end of the line, that’s when he shoved me and told me that I wasn’t shoving him around there and drawed back to hit me.
“Q. Did he at any time go to the end of the line as you ordered him to? A. No, sir. ' •
“Q. That’s all.” . (Tr. 18)

. Edwards’ testimony concerning this is at Tr. 17-18, as follows:
“Q. Well, I say, what was he trying to make you do? Was he trying to make you do something—give him something or hand him 'something or— A. No, I told him to go to. the end of the lint;— back to the tail end of the line.
*1010“Q. What was he trying to make you do, though, Mr. Edwards? A. Well, I don’t know that. He just shoved me and told me I wasn’t shoving him around there. That’s all.
“Q. Was he trying to do anything to influence you to do something? A. Well, he wouldn’t go to the end of the line when I told him to go to the end of the line. He shoved me back and told me I couldn’t shove him around there—
“Q. Was he trying to make you do something for him? A. Well, I don’t know if he was.
“Q. Well, if he wasn’t trying to make you do anything for him, this happened just because of him standing out there in line, and you wanted him to get back in. Is that right? A. No, he wasn’t standing in the line.
“Q. Standing out of the line? A. He was out of the line. He was going up the walk when I overtook him and told him to go to the end of the line.
“Q. He didn’t come up to you and try to make you do anything, did he? A. No, sir, he wasn’t supposed to.
“Q. But he didn’t do that, did he? A. No, sir.”