192 Ind. 684 | Ind. | 1923
Appellant was charged with the crime of involuntary manslaughter. He appeals from the judgment on the verdict.
Appellant, with three other men and two girls, spent one Sunday afternoon and evening in dancing and drinking a quart bottle of whiskey, purchased earlier in the day by tw.o of the men, companions of appellant, and by them brought to the place where the party was held. The four men and one of the girls — the deceased — drank
Appellant filed a motion for a new trial, for the causes that the verdict of the jury is contrary to law, and is not sustained by sufficient evidence. The overruling of which motion is the only error assigned.
To constitute the crime of manslaughter, there must be such legal relation between the commission of the unlawful act and the homicide that it logically follows that the homicide occurred as a concomitant part of the perpetration of, or in furtherance of an attempt to commit, the unlawful act. Therefore it follows that death must be the natural result and the probable consequence of the commission of the unlawful act upon which the homicide is based. Potter v. State (1904), 162 Ind. 213, 70 N. E. 129, 64 L. R. A. 942, 102 Am. St. 198, 1 Ann. Cas. 32; Commonwealth v. Adams (1873), 114 Mass. 323, 19 Am. Rep. 362; Thiele v. State (1921), 106 Nebr. 48, 182 N. W. 570, 15 A. L. R. 237; State v. Reitze (1914), 86 N. J. Law 407, 92 Atl. 576; Estell v. State (1889), 51 N. J. Law 182, 17 Atl. 118; 1 Bishop, New Criminal Law §331; Foster, Crown Law 259; 1 Hale, Pleas of the Crown (Eng.) p. [475]; Rex v. Joseph Martin (1827), 3 Car. & P. (Eng. 211) 531; Regina v. Packard (1841), Car. & Mar. (Eng.) 236, 245.
The evidence in the case at bar in relation to the probable consequence of the unlawful act, while being slight, is yet uncontradicted, to the effect that death is not the probable consequence of the unlawful act with which the defendant was charged in the commission of this crime. Inasmuch as the death was not the natural result or the probable consequence of the commission of the unlawful act, it follows that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict; from which conclusion it follows that the verdict is contrary to law.
Judgment reversed with the instruction to grant a new trial.