State v. Stewart

29 Mo. 419

• Court: Supreme Court of Missouri
• Decided: January 15, 1860
• Status: Published

Opinion

Napton, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court.

The indictment in this case is deemed sufficient under the thirty-eighth section of chapter fifty of the act concerning crimes and punishments.

We are not satisfied, however, that the instructions presented the law in such a shape to the jury as to enable them to understand their duty. None of the instructions, which are given, made any exceptions in favor of justifiable assaults; and this omission may have been right enough and produced no harm, if, in truth, there was no evidence in the case which rendered it necessary to present such a hypothesis to the jury.

But the instruction in reference to the intent of the defendant was calculated to mislead. The intent of the defendant in making the assault was a question of fact for the jury. The law raises no presumption about it, and it was error for the court to tell the jury that “ the law presumes that every man intends the natural, necessary, and probable consequence of his acts.”

With the concurrence. of the other judges, the judgment is reversed, and cause remanded.