SPENCER WOMACK, APPELLANT,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, APPELLEE

D.C. Cir. | 1964-07-23
No. 18426
336 F.2d 959 United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (1964) Positive Treatment
Cited by 28 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

A defendant is entitled to an instruction on intoxication if the evidence fairly raises the issue of whether the defendant could form the requisite specific intent.


Facts & Procedural History

Appellant was convicted of robbery, an offense requiring specific intent. Evidence was presented that the appellant had been drinking heavily before t…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM:

PER CURIAM:

Appellant was convicted of the crime of robbery, 22 D.C.Code § 2901, an element of which is the specific intent to rob. Appellant prepared an instruction on intoxication which the trial judge refused to give because intoxication was not the theory of the defense. But a defendant is entitled to an instruction on any issue fairly raised by the evidence, whether or not consistent with the defendant’s testimony or the defense trial theory. Specifically, “ * * * a defendant accused of robbery is entitled to an instruction on drunkenness as bearing on intent * * * if sufficient evidence on the intoxication issue has been introduced so that a reasonable man could possibly entertain a doubt therefrom that the accused was able to form the necessary intent.” Heideman v. United States, 104 U.S.App.D.C. 128, 131, 259 F. 2d 943, 946 (1958), cert. denied, 359 U.S. 959, 79 S.Ct. 800, 3 L.Ed.2d 767 (1959).

There was evidence that, shortly before the alleged robbery, the appellant had shared in drinking a pint and a half of gin, that he was “pretty high,” and that he forced money on his drinking companions. The Government’s own evidence showed that when appellant got in the taxicab where the incident took place, /he smelled of alcohol and was required to pay the driver in advance, that he gave the taxicab driver his right address as destination, and that after the alleged robbery, on discharge from the cab, he remained on the street comer near his home with a female companion for several minutes. The direct testimony of ■fclhe complaining witness, the taxi driver, was that the appellant “looked like he ■was kind of drunk and staggering.”

Thus there was substantial evidence tending to show that the appellant x was too drunk to form the requisite intent to rob. It was error for the trial court to refuse to allow this issue to be decided by the jury.

Reversed and remanded for a new trial.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By (13 total)

Previewing 3 of 13 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw