Court Opinion

ID: 9743509
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:35:14.547958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:41.703704
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Schaefer, dissenting: Mr. Chief Justice Klingbiel and I are of the opinion that the judgment should be reversed because the trial court erroneously refused to give the manslaughter instruction which was tendered on behalf of the defendant. The court disposes of this issue by saying that “the evidence of a high degree of intoxication (the results of the blood test) is amply overcome by the undisputed testimony concerning defendant’s apparently ordinary behavior and demeanor immediately prior to and after the stabbing of decedent.” This, however, is the very issue that should, in our opinion, have been submitted to the jury. The jury was not permitted to determine this issue, and we think it should not now be determined by this court. The arresting officers, who testified at the trial to the defendant’s “apparently ordinary behavior and demeanor”, seem to have felt considerable doubt when they arrested the defendant, for they immediately took him to a hospital for a blood test to determine the degree of his intoxication. The test showed that the alcoholic content in defendant’s blood was 19 hundredths of one per cent. At 15 hundredths of one per cent a person is presumed to be so intoxicated that he can not operate a motor vehicle safely. (111. Rev. Stat. 1957, chap. 95 y2, par. 144.) This evidence, coupled with the defendant’s own testimony that he had been drinking heavily throughout the afternoon and evening, tended to negative malice and would have permitted the jury to find the defend- ant guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. See, e.g., People v. Canada, 26 Ill.2d 491; People v. Brown, 415 Ill. 23; People v. Papas, 381 Ill. 90. Mr. Chief Justice Klingbiel joins in this dissent.