State v. Clark

167 P. 84, 98 Wash. 81, 1917 Wash. LEXIS 1141
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 22, 1917
DocketNo. 14173
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 167 P. 84 (State v. Clark) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Clark, 167 P. 84, 98 Wash. 81, 1917 Wash. LEXIS 1141 (Wash. 1917).

Opinion

Main, J.

The defendant in this case was charged by information with the crime of assault in the first degree. The trial resulted in a verdict of guilty. From the judgment and sentence entered upon the verdict, the appeal is prosecuted.

The facts are these: At about the hour of 9:30 o’clock, p. m., on the 17th day of July, 1915, at Burlington, in Skagit county, Washington, the appellant entered' what is referred to as the “Club Saloon,” and asked for a drink, which was refused him on account of his then intoxicated condition. Soon thereafter he got into an altercation which resulted in a fist fight between himself and one Lew Putell, just outside of the saloon doors. Being worsted in this encounter, the appellant went to a nearby restaurant, where he procured a butcher knife and returned to the saloon. He was there dispossessed of the knife by the proprietor and others. Immediately thereafter, a brother of the appellant started with [83]*83him to his home, which was about three blocks distant, where he resided with his parents. A few minutes later, gun shots were heard in the vicinity of the appellant’s residence. One R. A. Brooks, a deputy city marshal, was near the saloon when he first heard the shots, and he proceeded in the direction from which they.came. At about the same time, a deputy sheriff started in the same direction. These two officers approached the appellant’s residence upon a street which was lighted. When one of them was about one .hundred and fifty feet distant from the place where the appellant resided, other shots were fired. Two of these shots struck Brooks, one in the face, and the other in the shoulder. The other officer, having taken refuge behind an electric light pole, escaped injury. In all, five or six shots were fired. The appellant was subsequently arrested and charged, as above stated1, with the crime of assault in the first degree.

The first point urged upon this appeal is that the trial court erred in admitting certain testimony showing a separate and distinct offense not connected with the crime charged. It is here claimed that the conduct and mood of the appellant prior to the time of the shooting was inadmissible, under the general rule that, in a prosecution for a particular crime, evidence which shows, or tends to show, that the accused had committed another crime wholly independent of that for which he is on trial is irrelevant and inadmissible. But this rule is subject to certain well-defined exceptions which are as well settled as the rule itself. One of the exceptions is that, where intent is an essential element of the crime and a fact to be proven, evidence of another or other crimes may be admitted for the purpose of showing a condition of mind, or if the transaction under investigation and some other transaction are so interwoven that the admission of the testimony in relation to the other crime would detract something from the testimony which the state would have a right to introduce as tending to show the commission of the crime charged, the evidence of sueh other crime is admissible. [84]*841 Wigmore, Evidence, § 364; People v. Wilson, 117 Cal. 688, 49 Pac. 1054; State v. Gottfreedson, 24 Wash. 398, 64 Pac. 523.

In the ease last cited, it is said:

“The general rule is well established that proof of the commission of a separate and distinct crime will not be admitted for the purpose of aiding the conviction of defendant for the crime charged. There are exceptions, however, to this general rule, as where the testimony shows a connection between the transaction under investigation and some other transaction, and where they are so interwoven that the omission of the testimony in relation to the other crime would detract something from the testimony which the state would have a right to introduce as tending to show the commission of the crime charged by the defendant, or where it is apparent that the parties had a common purpose in the transaction of both crimes, or where the testimony tending to show the commission of one crime tends to prove a condition of mind which must necessarily be entertained by the defendant in the commission of the crime charged; ...”

In Rem. Code, at § 2413, the crime of assault in the first degree is defined as follows:

“Every person who, with intent to kill a human being,
“(1) Shall assault another with a firearm or any deadly weapon or by any force or means likely to produce death; . . shall be guilty of assault in the first degree and shall be punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for not less than five years.”

By this statute, so far as applicable to the present case, the crime there defined consists of two elements: First, an assault ; and second, an intent to kill a human being. It is incumbent upon the state to establish both of these elements as facts by competent evidence. In State v. Dolan, 17 Wash. 499, 50 Pac. 472, the defendant was charged with and convicted of the crime of assault with intent to commit murder. In the course of the opinion, it was there said:

“The crime here charged consists of two essential elements; first, an assault, and second, a specific felonious intent to kill. [85]*85Both these elements were alleged as facts in the information, and it was therefore incumbent upon the state to establish them as facts by competent evidence. And it was for the jury and not the court, to determine the existence of both these facts.”

The court was there considering an instruction which was held to be erroneous because it advised the jury that the element of intent to kill could1 be inferred or presumed from the act done, even though it did not result in the death of the victim. Where the intent, which is an element of the crime, relates to a greater crime than that accomplished, the intent. is not presumed from the act done. The confusion in the present case seems to have arisen over the failure to distinguish between an intent which is inferred from the act done, when the act does not go beyond intent, and an intent to commit a greater crime than the act done actually accomplishes. The distinction between the two intents is clearly and concisely stated in the case of State v. Davis, 72 Wash. 261, 130 Pac. 95, where it is said:

“While it is true that a man is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts, it is true also that the presumption arising from the acts alone never extends beyond the actual consequences of the acts. If one person wilfully assaults another and inflicts upon him a dangerous wound, the jury would have the right to infer from the act that he intended to inflict the dangerous wound; or, if one person wilfully assaults another and inflicts upon him a dangerous wound likely to cause death and death ensues therefrom, the jury have the right to infer from the act and its consequence that he intended to kill the person assaulted; but if a man assaults another and inflicts upon him a dangerous wound likely to cause death but death does not ensue, the jury have no right to infer from the act alone that he intended to kill, because such was not the consequence of the act. State v. Dolan, 17 Wash. 499, 50 Pac. 472; State v. Williams, 36 Wash. 143, 78 Pac. 780.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
167 P. 84, 98 Wash. 81, 1917 Wash. LEXIS 1141, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-clark-wash-1917.