Court Opinion

ID: 9702218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:01:12.84487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:34.853763
License: Public Domain

*315Markell, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion, in which Henderson, J., concurred.
In order to find defendant not guilty of the crime with which he was charged and of which there is abundant evidence, it is necessary in effect to find him guilty of a fraud with which he was not charged and of which there is no evidence other than his own testimony that the drug he administered was penicillin and that in his opinion (with which he says some physicians differ) penicillin would not have any effect on a [threatened] miscarriage other than to safeguard from infection. Defendant’s testimony alone, in this respect in full accord with the testimony of both of his customers, conclusively shows what the customers came for, what he demanded $200 for (and later accepted $150) — cash in advance — and what result he told them to expect. These are undisputed facts — though, as the majority opinion indicates, we need not believe that the drug defendant administered was penicillin or that the only instrumentality previously tried by the woman herself was a few drops of turpentine. Defendant’s testimony not only directly proves all the facts already mentioned, but shows his entire bad faith (so far as violating the law is concerned), and his “good faith” in giving the unlawful service for which he was employed and paid, and warrants an inference of the intent on his part which was the customers’ sole purpose in coming to him. The view of the majority opinion seems to be that the required intent is lacking because (1) there is in fact, and (2) defendant knew there is, no known drug which would produce the effect bargained for. Neither of these premises is supported by evidence.
Whatever ambiguity there may have been in Dr. Ehrlich’s answer was immediately corrected by him. Defendant was not dealing with a “normal pregnancy” but with one that already had been tampered with. Dr. Ehrlich did not say — and defendant did not say — that no single dose of any known drug, administered to a woman in the condition in which she was when de*316fendant treated her, could have produced “her condition” at the time Dr. Ehrlich saw her.
Judge Henderson authorizes me to say that he concurs in this opinion.