Court Opinion

ID: 9460910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:02:26.843726+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:49.453811
License: Public Domain

PELL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I wholeheartedly approve of and concur in the perceptive analysis in Judge Sprecher’s opinion for the majority in which he has cut through the semantical mishmash that frequently seems to evolve from judicial sallies into the obscure vistas of differentiation between general and specific intent.
I am unable, however, to concur in the result reached in the majority opinion and respectfully dissent therefrom.
The only close aspect that I find in this case is that part of the court’s instructions to the effect that if the defendant acted or failed to act because of intoxication it was not a defense. I do not quarrel, nor do I understand that the majority does, with the immediately preceding statement in the charge that the crime does not involve specific intent. I would accept the majority standard that escape is a voluntary departure from custody with an intent to avoid confinement.
Looking at the record in the light of this standard I am convinced that Nix had a fair trial and that the jury found him guilty under instructions, which with the one questionable exception, properly were applicable under the standard stated in the majority opinion. While the reference to intoxication not being a defense might be prejudicially erroneous in some conceivable factual situations,1 I do not deem it so here.
Intoxication unless it is pursued to the point of unconsciousness does not prevent an act from being voluntary nor from being participated in for the purpose of accomplishing a desired end. The fact that a prisoner might be less inclined to attempt an escape if his sense of derring-do were uninfluenced by spirits should be no defense any more than it would be in a driving-under-the-influence case to the still ambulatory besotted person who fancies that he can perform feats of driving which he would not have considered attempting if sober.
From the testimony of the defendant’s fellow inmates (five of whom were serving time for bank robbery, one for kidnapping, and one for conspiracy and assault with a deadly weapon) home brew and occasionally whiskey were flowing with the freedom of water at the Marion federal penitentiary. Accepting their testimony at face value (despite the patent incredibility of much of it) Nix was drunk on May 10, 1972. The only testimony which corresponded at all timewise with Nix’s apprehension in the truck outside the prison walls was from Richard Montgomery2 who had been reading in his cell at about 1:00 a.m. on May *52111. When Nix was brought by the cell Nix told Montgomery that he was being put in segregation for being drunk. Montgomery further testified that he could smell alcohol on Nix’s breath, that he observed Nix as having bloodshot eyes, and that Nix was wobbling and unsure on his feet. One other witness testified that at some time during the day preceding Nix’s apprehension he had observed Nix “knocked out, the last time I seen him, laying on one of them crates.” No witness described Nix’s condition as either being sober or intoxicated at any time during the evening. Nix or the dummy was in Nix’s cell at the checks at 4 p.m., 7 p.m., and 10 p.m. The truck had been loaded sometime before it was moved out of prison confine after the 10 p.m. check. Nix was standing inside the truck when the fastened rear door, the only entrance to the truck, was opened after midnight.
Despite the fact that the judge stated that intoxication was not a defense, it is clear that the jury was informed that a conviction required a determination that Nix had intentionally committed the act of attempting to escape.
As a background matter, the indictment, which was read to the jury and a copy of which was taken to the jury room during deliberations, charged that Nix “did unlawfully and willfully attempt to escape from such custody [of the Attorney General].”
Counsel for Nix presented the case during final summation consistently with what I conceive to be the standard of intent laid down in the majority opinion. Thus:
“Very briefly, let me explain something to you that’s been left out of the final argument, that wasn’t mentioned in the opening argument about what we’re involved in, and that simply, ladies and gentlemen, is that this is a criminal case. We have accused a man of committing a crime.
“It depends upon two things, as I believe the judge is going to instruct you; .one, that he did a certain act, and secondly, that he intended to that act. [sic] ,
“Two elements that the prosecution must prove. Two things. Not just that Joe Charles Nix was out in the van in the lot, but also that he intended to be out in the van in the lot, and that was his desire and where he intended to be at this time and — -involved in this situation. Two things.
* * * * * *
“If, when you go in that jury room, there is a reasonable doubt in your mind as to whether or not this man had that intention and committed that-act, it’s your duty under the law to return a verdict of not guilty.
X * X- X- X X
“Do you think that’s the kind — that that sort of circumstance shows that this man intended to escape? I suggest to you it does not, that was not his intention at the time.
X X X X X X
“The key of what’s going on here has to do with intention. Let’s examine these exhibits and see what we had.
X X X X X X-
“Take the exhibits one by one, and study them one by one, and see where there was an intention to perform this act. See where it’s proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
X- X X- X X X
“I suggest to you there’s nothing in this case, when you start fitting these pieces together to see what they mean in relation one to another, that suggest anything other than reasonable doubt about what this man’s intention was, what his mind was, what is going on in his mind, and that’s what the element of intent to commit the act is all about. If it were enough, *522because he’s outside the wall, to say that this man’s guilty of escape, we wouldn’t be here today. Everybody says he’s outside.
* * -» * * *
“Let’s see if it’s not plausible, and it’s simply this, that he got drunk; with everything else that goes in and out of this penitentiary, I suggest to you that it’s quite believable that there’s alcohol going in and out of it, too.
*X- -X- -X- -X- “X- -X-
“I ask you to go over every bit of this evidence, if you will, as I’ve suggested it to you, and study it, and see if it isn’t very equivocal, very doubtful, and see if there is really one iota of conclusive, undisputed evidence which says this man intended to be secretive in that van outside that yard.”
The judge, consistently with his view that this was a crime requiring for conviction only proof of general intent, charged in part as follows:
“To constitute the crime charged in the indictment, there must be the joint operation of two essential elements, an act forbidden by law and an intent to do the act.
“Before a defendant may be found guilty of a crime, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that under the statute described in these instructions, the defendant was forbidden to do the act charged in the indictment, and that he intentionally committed the act.
“In these instructions the terms knowingly, willfully and unlawfully are used. I will define those terms for you now.
“An act or failure to act is done knowingly if done voluntarily and intentionally, and not because of mistake or accident or other innocent reason.
“An act is done willfully if done voluntarily and intentionally, and with the specific intent3 to do something the law forbids; that is to say, with bad purpose either to disobey or disregard the law.
“Unlawfully means contrary to law. So to do an act unlawfully means to do willfully something which is contrary to law.”
Since, in my opinion, it was sufficient that the jury understand that there must be an intent to commit the crime, and inasmuch as the jury was fully informed to that effect and the evidence overwhelmingly supported the fact that there was an intent on the part of Nix to attempt to escape, I would affirm the judgment of conviction.
I think it is a fair observation that following the publication of the majority opinion no escapee apprehended within a relatively short time after leaving prison walls will admit to being a teetotaler.

. For example, if the proof showed that Nix had climbed into a truck, and had then consumed alcoholic beverages to the point of becoming unconscious, after which the truck was moved outside the prison walls, the matter of intoxication might have some relevancy.

. Montgomery’s description of Nix’s general aptitude as a drinker of alcoholic beverages was as follows:
“When Joe Nix — when I have seen Joe Nix drinking alcohol, he — he just — through talk*521ing real loud, his eyes get real bloodshot, he gets acting like a real jolly person, just a jolly, happy-go-lucky person, and as — the more he gets to drinking, the more ignorant he becomes, and it’s obvious he can’t handle his liquor.”

. As indicative of the uncertainties involved in the use of specific and general intent, the trial judge in connection with doing something the law forbids did use the term “specific intent” although later in the charge he stated that the crime itself did not involve specific intent.