Court Opinion

ID: 9528322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:39:45.896645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:45.367409
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ANGSTMAN:
(dissenting).
Defendant was charged with the crime of assault with a loaded firearm. The jury found him guilty of assault in the *57first degree and left his punishment to be fixed by the court. The court instructed the jury on first and second-degree assault, but refused defendant’s request for an instruction on third degree. This refusal is assigned as error.
This court has held that where the evidence shows that defendant is guilty of second degree assault or not guilty at all, and where there is no evidence warranting an instruction on third degree assault, it is error to give an instruction on third degree. State v. Karri, 84 Mont. 130, 276 Pac. 427.
In 6 C. J. S., Assault and Battery, sec. 128, p. 1006, it is said: “On the other hand, where the evidence discloses that accused was either guilty of a more serious offense, or was not guilty at all, the court is not only justified in failing or refusing to give an instruction as to the lesser offense but in such case it also seems that an instruction as to a lower degree of the offense, where accused is acquitted of the higher offense charged and convicted of the lower, is ground for reversal.” To the same effect is 53 Am. Jur., Trial, sec. 798, p. 591.
Here the evidence shows that defendant pointed a loaded firearm at George Paul Woods, the driver of a taxicab, while sitting beside the driver. As he did so he told Mr. Woods to take him to Kellogg, Idaho. When Woods inquired about the fare, defendant, as he pointed the gun at him said: “Here’s your fare. * * * Start driving.” Woods testified: “He told me to start driving or he would kill me right there.” Woods was put in fear of impending injury. These are the elements of an assault in the first or second degree. State v. Papp, 51 Mont. 405, 153 Pac. 279. The intent to commit- a felony upon the person of George Paul Woods is shown by the proof that defendant pointed a loaded firearm at him and put him in fear of grievous bodily injury or death with a threat to kill him. State v. Farnham, 35 Mont. 375, 89 Pac. 728. The fact that the threat was not carried out is of no importance. Had it been carried out defendant would have been tried for murder and not assault. Likewise the intent to commit a felony upon the person of George Paul Woods was shown by the proof that *58defendant attempted to obtain the use of the automobile then in the custody and control of Mr. Woods, without the latter’s consent, for a free ride to Kellogg, Idaho, contrary to section 94-3305, R. C. M. 1947.
True, this intent was not carried out, but sufficient acts were done to constitute an attempt to commit that crime and this is likewise a felony under the statute. R. C. M. 1947, sec. '94-4710. To hold that the intent to commit a felony upon Woods was not proved in this case is to encourage those who are so disposed to compel action by another at the point of a loaded gun. I think my associates are in error in so holding.
If there was no proof of intent to commit a felony upon the person of George Paul Woods, as the majority opinion holds, then the crime was that of assault in the second degree, R. C. M. 1947, sec. 94-602, and the error was that of instructing on first-degree assault and not on the failure to instruct on third degree.
It should be noted that assault in the second degree is not limited to subdivision 5 of section 94-602, R. C. M. 1947. As to subdivision 4 that section provides: ‘ ‘ Every person who, under circumstances not amounting to the offense specified in the last section: * * *
“4. Wilfully and wrongfully assaults another by the use of a weapon, or other instrument or thing likely to produce grievous bodily harm * i! * is guilty of an assault in the second degree ’ ’.
Since a loaded firearm was used the assault was of the first or second degree or there was no assault at all. There was no evidence of an assault in the third degree.
Defendant’s version of the affair was that he had taken a dose of benzedrex with some hot beef tea and that he had no recollection of what happened after that. He said, “It seems like the petcocks were open,” and “I thought the whole town had torn loose.” Had defendant’s version been believed it would not have reduced the degree of the offense to third degree but would have entitled him to an acquittal. The jury evidently *59rejected his story as it had a right to do. State v. Willette, 46 Mont. 326, 127 Pac. 1013; State v. Grimsley, 96 Mont. 327, 30 Pac. (2d) 85; State v. Semmens, 105 Mont. 113, 71 Pac. (2d) 913.
I think the court was right in refusing to give an instruction on third degree assault.
On the question of proof of the prior conviction I also disagree with the majority opinion.
Defendant was asked if he had been convicted of a felony and he said, “yes.” He was then asked, “What was the charge?”. His answer was, “Forgery.” That was the only reference to the former conviction. I think this was entirely proper under the authorities cited in my dissenting opinion in State v. Coloff, 125 Mont. 31, 231 Pac. (2d) 343. In this case the judgment of prior conviction was not introduced in evidence as in the Coloff Case and the majority opinion in this ease goes much further in restricting the state’s right of cross-examination of defendant for the purpose of impeachment than does the majority opinion in the Coloff Case, and further than the law requires. It should be uoted too that no objection was made to the questions relating to the prior conviction.
I also disagree with the majority opinion so far as it holds that error was committed in refusing to give defendant’s offered instruction No. 3.
That offered instruction was to the effect that a person is incapable of committing a crime when he is not conscious thereof. As above noted, defendant submitted proof that he had taken a dose of benzedrex which in effect caused a blackout. Other evidence submitted in behalf of defendant was to the effect that the drug is used as a stimulant and that the quantity of benzedrex which defendant says he took would lead to “mental confusion, hallucination, delirium and slurred speech. At one stage there would be a condition of euphrasia, a general good feeling.” There was evidence that a person would probably not act normally with such a large dose. The record discloses *60other information and appeared normal except that he had a that when defendant was arrested he gave his name, age and few drinks. Witnesses for the state testified that defendant was not “drunk.”
The offered instruction was in conformity with R. C. M. 1947, sec. 94-201, subd. 5, which in declaring that among those incapable of committing crimes are: “Persons who committed the act charged without being conscious thereof.”
The court, however, gave an instruction on the effect of intoxication in conformity with R. C. M. 1947, sec. 94-119, as follows: “You are further instructed that no act committed by a person while in a state of voluntary intoxication is less criminal by his being in said condition. But, whenever the actual existence of any particular purpose, motive or intent is a necessary element to constitute any particular' species or degree of crime, the jury may take into consideration the fact that the accused was intoxicated at the time, in determining the purpose, motive or intent with which he committed the act. ’ ’
I think the court did not err in refusing the offered instruction.
The evidence tends to show that benzedrex when taken in sufficiently large quantity produces the same effect as intoxication.
The case is comparable to that of People v. Sameniego, 118 Cal. App. 165, 4 Pac. (2d) 809, 812, 5 Pac. (2d) 653. In that ease a requested instruction in conformity with subdivision 5 of section 26 of the California Penal Code, which is the same as R. C. M. 1947, see. 94-201, subd. 5, was refused. In that ease defendant said he had taken a drug called dial ciba which he contended rendered him unconscious. The court in holding that the trial court was right in refusing the offered instruction, in part, said: “Appellants in their testimony denied that either of them used narcotics, but said that they had used a drug named dial ciba, the effect of which was the ‘same thing as whiskey,’ Mossberg adding, ‘It goes further than that; it deadens one’s conscience.’ This testimony shows that the con*61dition produced by this drug, if any was used, was that of intoxication, and since the taking of this intoxicating drug was voluntary the law applicable to an act committed while under its influence is not subdivision 5 of section 26 of the Penal Code but section 22 of that code, which provides that no act is less criminal by reason of the perpetrator having been in a state of voluntary intoxication, but that evidence of intoxication may be considered by the jury in determining the purpose, motive or intent with which he committed the act. Section 22 is not limited to intoxication resulting from the use of intoxicating liquor, but includes all forms of voluntary intoxication. ’ ’
To the same effect is 22 C. J. S., Criminal Law, see. 65, p. 130.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Commonwealth v. Detweiler, 229 Pa. 304, 78 A. 271, 272, where defendant claimed that his mind was a blank at the time of the commission of the alleged crime due to smoking opium, had this to say: “Intoxication from the voluntary excessive use of opium or any other drug taken to gratify the appetite is considered in the law the same as intoxication from the voluntary use of liquors.”
As I have stated above the jury did not believe defendant’s story about the blackout. The least it could have done if it believed that story was to reduce the degree of the crime to second-degree assault. Under the circumstances of this case defendant was not prejudiced by the refusal to give offered instruction No. 3 even if such an instruction should have been given, because it is clear that the jury rejected the evidence tending to support the claim that defendant was not conscious of committing the act charged, and such an instruction would not have changed the result in the case.
I think the judgment should be affirmed.