4 N.J. Misc. 395 | N.J. | 1926
The defendants below were convicted of robbery in Atlantic County Quarter Sessions. The case is here before us on writ of error under the one hundred and thirty-sixth and one hundred and thirty-seventh sections of the Criminal Procedure act. The first cause for reversal relied on in the brief filed on behalf of the plaintiffs in error is: Eefusal of the trial court to allow defendant to examine jurors upon their voir dire before being sworn as jurors. There is no substance in this. According to the record the jurors were in the box and counsel for defendant stated to the court, “I would like to challenge for cause if I may. Have any of you ladies or gentlemen read anything about this case, or
That drunkenness in any degree cannot justify the commission of crime as a general legal proposition is correct. Drunkenness cannot be pleaded successfully in justification of the commission of any unlawful act. The plea of justification implies a lawful reason for the commission of the alleged unlawful act. It has been universally hold that drunkenness affords no legal justification. But to say that drunkenness in any degree cannot * * * mitigate the commission of a crime is inaccurate.
It has been held by our Court of Errors and Appeals in Warner v. State, 56 N. J. L. 686, 690, and in Wilson v. State, 60 Id. 171, that when the character and extent of a crime is made by law to depend upon the state and condition of the defendant’s mind at the time and with reference to the act done, intoxication as a circumstance affecting such state and condition of the mind is a proper subject for inquiry and consideration by the jury as to the degree of crime committed.
It is to be particularly noted that in the present case of proof of intoxication of Letter was not offered either as a justification or in mitigation of the crime alleged against him, but as an important circumstance for the jury to consider whether he was in such a physical and mental state as to make it improbable that he had any connection with, or in anywise to have participated in, the robbery alleged to have been committed in the taxicab by DiCanio, in view of testimony to the effect that the defendant was practically carried to the cab and was “lying in the cab unconscious” “in a drunken stupor,” at the time of the commission of the alleged robbery.
Eor if the drunkenness of Letter was to such a degree that he was not able to conceive any intent to commit the unlawful act and was physically helpless to abet or to participate in the commission of the unlawful act, proof of such a mental and physical state was as effective a defense to the accusation made against him as if he had been mentally and physically disabled by paralysis or some other disease from conceiving the criminal design and from executing it.
For the reasons given the judgment against DiCanio is affirmed and the judgment against Letter is reversed, and as to him a new trial is ordered.