State v. Cooley

Citations

• 19 N.M. 91
• 140 P. 1111

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Between the two offenses, murder in the second degree and voluntary manslaughter, the drunkenness of the offender forms no legitimate matter of inquiry; if the killing is unlawful and voluntary, and without deliberate premeditation, the offense is murder in the second degree, malice being implied, unless the provocation were of such character as would reduce the crime to voluntary manslaughter, for which offense a drunken man is equally responsible as a sober one.</p> <p>P. 102</p> <p>2. Where a defendant, charged with first degree murder, .relies upon the defense of intoxication for the purpose of reducing the grade of the offense to murder in the second ■degree, he is not required to establish the fact of his intoxication, or, that at the time he inflicted the fatal injuries he was so deeply intoxicated as to be incapable of forming in his mind a deliberate premeditated design to do the killing, beyond a reasonable doubt. All that he is required to •do, is to introduce such evidence as will raise in the minds •of the jurors a reasonable doubt as to such facts in order to reduce the grade of the offense to murder in the second «degree.</p> <p>P. 104</p> <p>3. It is improper for the court, in the trial of a criminal ■case, to permit the district attorney to ask witnesses if he, the district attorney, did not instruct said witnesses not to talk to anyone about the cause, and if they did not, in violation of such instructions, talk to the attorney for the defendant about the 'facts in the case; and, where the court •erroneously permits such questions to be asked and answered, it should, upon request, instruct the jury that the district attorney had no right to forbid witnesses talking to the attorney for the defendant, about the facts in the case, or to enforce such an order. P. 108</p> <p>4. Where mere descriptive language is inadequate to convey to the jury the precise facts, or their bearing on the issue, the description by the w