People v. Janiga

244 N.W.2d 428, 69 Mich. App. 237, 1976 Mich. App. LEXIS 742
CourtMichigan Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 27, 1976
DocketDocket No. 23836
StatusPublished

This text of 244 N.W.2d 428 (People v. Janiga) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Janiga, 244 N.W.2d 428, 69 Mich. App. 237, 1976 Mich. App. LEXIS 742 (Mich. Ct. App. 1976).

Opinion

D. C. Riley, J.

Defendant appeals his conviction in the Wayne County Circuit Court of breaking and entering a business place with intent to commit larceny, MCLA 750.110; MSA 28.305, and sets forth seven alleged errors committed below.

Defendant was arrested after he was seen leaving a used car office that had been broken into. Defendant claimed that he had entered the building after being assured by his drinking companion that their presence was authorized. He argued that, because he was drunk, he did not form the specific intent required to violate the statute.

One claim of error is determinative and requires that we reverse the conviction. Defendant contends that the trial court issued instructions on intoxication and the necessity of specific intent that confused the jury. We are constrained to agree.

The relevant excerpts of the court’s instructions follow:

[239]*239"Now, you have heard the word 'felonious’ used by all parties and I believe even the Court. And felonious is a technical word of the legal vocabulary. It imports that the act charged was done with the mind bent on that which was criminal, with an unlawful and wicked intent and when applied to violations of a criminal statute, if the facts prove the statute was intentionally violated and established upon, then it may be said the crime was feloniously committed.

"The felonious intent in a prosecution for breaking and entering is a question of fact for the jury to be inferred from all the facts and circumstances disclosed by the testimony and evidence received in the course of the trial. On a prosecution for entering a building with intent to commit the crime of larceny, evidence of the commission of other larcenies is admissible as bearing on the question of intent, with which the building was entered.

"The law provides an additional method of proof for the particular purpose of showing motivation, intent, a scheme, a plan or a system for doing an act. Such proof may also be calculated to demonstrate the absence of mistake or accident in the doing of a certain act.

"In this case, the defendant has introduced his record of prior convictions which have included convictions for breaking and entering in the nighttime and at other times. While it is true that proof of guilt of other crimes or of the commission of other similar acts at other times, even though of the same nature as is involved in this case, is not evidence of the commission of the charge in this case, it may, however, be regarded and be considered as proof of motivation, intent, a scheme, a plan or a system of doing an act and that such an act was not the result of mistake or accident.

"The defense has relied upon the drunkenness or intoxication of the defendant. Intoxication is defined as that condition of a person whose physical and mental powers are affected by the use of intoxicating liquors and it is not necessary that the excitement amount to a frenzy. Voluntary intoxication, of whatever degree, constitutes no defense to the commission of a crime. A man [240]*240who voluntarily puts himself into a position to have no control over his actions, must be held to intend the consequences. The safety of the community requires this rule. Intoxication is so easily counterfeited and when real is so often resorted as a means of nerving the respondent to the commission of some desperate act and is so inexcusable in itself, that the law has never recognized it as an excuse for crime.

"While it is true that drunkenness or intoxication cannot excuse crime, it is equally true that where a certain intent is a necessary element of offense, the crime cannot be committed without the existence of the intent and such intent is not as necessary to be proved as the act itself. And if a respondent by reason of drunkenness or intoxication was incapable of entertaining such specific intent, a conviction cannot be sustained.

"Voluntary intoxication in such cases may be a defense where it is of a degree which enables a jury to say that the accused was incapable of forming the specific and requisite intent. If the defendant, however, formed the requisite intent before he became intoxicated and while in possession of his mental faculties, his subsequent voluntary intoxication to whatever extent would not shield him. The essence of execution for specific intent crimes to the general rule that intoxication is not a defense, is that the specific intent will be implied as an intentional consequence of voluntary intoxication. To entirely eliminate voluntary intoxication as a defense to a specific intent crime, it must be shown that the defendant while sober formed a specific intent requisite to the commission of the particular crime he is charged with committing.”

An analysis of the propriety of particular intoxication instructions concerning offenses requiring specific intent must discuss at least five recent cases.

The leading case is People v Crittle, 390 Mich 367; 212 NW2d 196 (1973). Crittle held erroneous an instruction which directed the jury to consider [241]*241the defendant’s capacity to form a specific intent. Crittle suggested that the proper emphasis of the court’s instruction was the existence of an actual' specific intent. Intoxication could negate the actual intent, but a defendant need not have been intoxicated to have lacked the requisite intent.

People v Scott, 55 Mich App 739; 223 NW2d 330 (1974), concluded that the focus of an analysis of intoxication instructions in specific intent charges is the likelihood of jury confusion. If sufficient clarity in instructions is found, a court could give instructions that contained both the "capacity” and the "Cooley” standards. The standards are not irreconcilably conflicting, but the capacity standard, if standing alone or if overemphasized to the point of excluding the "Cooley” test, is insufficient.

People v Parsons, 59 Mich App 79; 228 NW2d 852 (1975), adopted the Scott analysis and concentrated on possible juror confusion. The court suggested that, while a specific excerpt of the instructions emphasized capacity, the instructions in their entirety correctly advised the jury that specific intent must be shown. A capacity instruction, if merely supplemental to proper intent instructions, will not mandate reversal.

People v Watson, 59 Mich App 299; 229 NW2d 424 (1975), found instructions and closing arguments that emphasized the capacity standard to be erroneous. Judge Van Valkenburg, the author of both Scott and Watson, focused his analysis on the likelihood of juror confusion.

Finally, in People v McKenzie, 67 Mich App 356, 360; 241 NW2d 205 (1976), a panel of this Court upheld a conviction where "the instruction is clear that the question is whether or not the intent did in fact exist * * * ”. The potential prejudice of [242]*242some confusing language in the instructions was overcome by clear specific intent instructions.

The potential prejudice involved in all of these cases is that the jury, by following the instructions, will necessarily conclude that defendant had the requisite intent once they find that his drunkenness did not incapacitate him. The jury will erroneously be allowed to reason that because defendant was not so drunk, he must have had the intent.

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Related

People v. Scott
223 N.W.2d 330 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1974)
People v. Watson
229 N.W.2d 424 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1975)
People v. Parsons
228 N.W.2d 852 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1975)
People v. Kelley
176 N.W.2d 435 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1970)
People v. Palmer
202 N.W.2d 536 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1972)
People v. McKenzie
241 N.W.2d 205 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1976)
People v. Crittle
212 N.W.2d 196 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1973)
Roberts v. People
19 Mich. 401 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1870)

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Bluebook (online)
244 N.W.2d 428, 69 Mich. App. 237, 1976 Mich. App. LEXIS 742, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-janiga-michctapp-1976.