PART IV.— TITLE L—DIVISION I. 1133 Persons capable of committing crimes. PAKT IV. PENAL LAWS. TITLE I PENAL CODE. Division 1.- -Persons Capable of Committing Crimes. Division 2. -Principals and Accessories. 3.- Division -Crimes against the State and People. ,i. Division 4.- -Crimes against the Person. Division 5. -Crimes against the Habitation. Division 6.- -Crimes Relative to Property. Division 7.- -Forging, Counterfeiting, and Unlawful Currency. "Division 8.- -Crimes against Public Justice. Division 9.- -Against Public Peace and Tranquility. Division 10.- -Against Public Morality, Health, Police, etc. Division 11.- -Cheats and Swindles. Division 12.- -Fraudulent or Malicious Mischief. Division 13.- -Indictments and Proceedings to Execution. Division 14.- -Contempts, etc., and Attempts to Commit Crimes. Division 15.- -Proceedings in Preliminary Courts. FIRST DIVISION. PERSONS capable of committing crimes. t Section. Section. 4292. Crime, definition. 4299. If insanity is pleaded. 4293. Intention. 4300. Married women. 4294. Infants of fourteen years, capable. 4H01. Drunkeness, when excuse. 4295. Under ten, incapable. 4302. Misfortune or accident. 4296. Lunatics. 4*03. Persons under fear. 4297. Idiots. 4304. Felony, what is. 4298. Aiders and abettors instead. §4292. (4227.) (4188.) Definition of crime. A crime or misdemeanor shall consist in a violation of a public law, in the commission of which there shall ]>e a union or joint operation of act and intention, or crim- inal negligence. An offense cannot be created by vague implications : 33 Ga., 229. §4293. (4228.) (4189.) Intention. Intention will be manifested by the circumstances connected with the perpetration of the offense, and the sound mind and discretion of the person accused. 1 Bish. Cr. Law, §364 ; 1 Hawley Cr. Rep. ; 30 Am. R., 614; 32/247. §4294. (4229.) (4190.) Infants of fourteen capable. A person shall be §3064. considered of sound mind, who is neither an idiot, a lunatic, or afflicted : 1134 PART IV.—TITLE L—DIVISION I. Persons capable of committing crimes. by insanity, or who hath arrived at the age of fourteen years, or before that age, if such person know the distinction between good and evil. Capacity to distinguish between right and wrong delusion: 3 Ga., 310; 31/424; 42/10. Where neither idiot, lunatic or insane, cannot prove defendant of weak mind : 7 Ga., 3. 1 Bish. Cr. Law, §460; 1 Whart. Cr. Law, 58; 1 Archbold Cr. Pr. and PL, 10; 36 Am. R., 132. §4295. (4230.) (4191.) Under ten, according to capacity, etc. An infant §3064. under the age of ten years, whose tender age renders it improbable that he or she should be impressed with a proper sense of moral obligation, or be possessed of sufficient capacity deliberately to have committed the offense, shall not be considered or foundguilty of any crime or mis-. demeanor. Infant of fourteen years convicted of voluntary manslaughter, on what evidence 32 Ga., 496. §4296. (4231.) (4192.) Lunatics. A lunatic or person insane, without lucid intervals, shall not bs found guilty of any crime or misdemeanor with which he or she may be charged: Provided, the act so charged as criminal was committed in the condition of such lunacy or insanity; but if a lunatic hath lucid intervals of understanding, he shall answer for what he does in those intervals as if he had no deficiency. Witness may give in evidence belief in a case of insanity if he states the facts on which it is based: 10 Ga., 513 ; 31/424. Experts allowed to testify as to insanity, but family and neighborhood reputation as to, inadmissible, onomania and moral insan- ity questioned: 58 Ga., 296 ; 45/190; 31/424. Sanity presumed, and must be overcome by proof to contrary to avail for acquittal : 45 Ga., 55 ; 56/463. Insanity, to excuse for crime, must dethrone reason and incapacitate from distinguishing between right and wrong: 47 Ga., 553; 58/296. The madness of an act not necessarily insanity: 54 Ga., 375. §4297. (4232.) (4193.) Idiots. An idiot shall not be found guilty or punished for any crime or misdemeanor with which he or she may be charged. §4298. (4233.) (4194.) Counselors and instigators punishable. Any per- son counseling, advising or encouraging an infant under the age of ten years, a lunatic or an idiot, to commit an offense, shall be prosecuted for such an offense, when committed, as principal; and if found guilty, shall suffer the same punishment as would have been inflicted on said infant, lunatic or idiot, if he or she had possessed discretion and been found guilty. §4299. (4234.) (4195.) Plea of insanity, how tried. Whenever the plea of insanity is filed, it shall be the duty of the Court to cause the issue on that plea to be first tried by a special jury, and if found to be true, the Court shall order the defendant to be delivered to the Superinten- dent of the Asylum, there to remain until discharged by the General Assembly. Must allege prisoner's insanity at the time of the trial : 38 Ga., 491. Going to trial on this plea and that of the general issue, without insisting on trial on the first, jury may find guilty or not guilty ; reasonable doubt: 42 Ga., 9-10. Insanity as a defense : 1 Bish. Cr. Law, §467 ; 1 Whart. Cr. Law, §13 ; 1 Arch. Cr. Pr. and PL, 16; 2 Bish. Cr. Proc, §664; 1 Hawley's Cr. Rep., 283, 297,' 358-9; 3/313; 9 Am. P., 242; 11/731; 18/420; 31/360; 35/20. §4300. (4235.) (4196.) Married women, if coerced, not punishable. A feme covert, or married woman, acting under the threats, command or coercion of her husband, shall not be found guilty of any crime or misde- meanor not punishable by death or perpetual imprisonment; and, with this exception, the husband shall be prosecuted as principal, and, if convicted, shall receive the punishment which otherwise would have been inflicted on the wife, if she had been found guilty : Provided, it appears, from all the facts and circumstances of the case, that violent threats, command and coercion were used. 1 Bishop Cr. Law, §450; 1 Whart. Cr. Law, §66; 1 Arch. Cr. Pr. and PI., 39. ; PART IV.—TITLE I.—DIVISION I. 1135 Persons capable of committing crimes. §4301. (4236.) (4197.) Drunkenness no excuse ; others causing, liability. Drunkenness shall not be an excuse for any crime or misdemeanor, un- less such drunkenness was occasioned by the fraud, artifice, or con- trivance, of other person or persons, for the purpose of having a crime perpetrated ; and then the person or persons so causing said drunken- ness, for such malignant purpose, shall be considered a principal, and suffer the same punishment as would have been inflicted on the per- son or persons committing the offense, if he, she, or they, had been pos- sessed of sound reason and discretion. Voluntary drunkenness of whatever degree is no excuse for crime: 17 Ga., 14G 34/354 : 55/31 ; 53/198. While drunkenness is no excuse, yet it may be considered as to whether the prisoner was excited by passion or actuated by malice : 25 Ga., 527 ; 49/211. Also as to whether the intention to kill preceded the provocation or was produced by it: 29 Ga., 594. Inordinate thirst for liquor, produced by habitual drunkenness, no excuse for crime : 31 Ga., 424-5. Witness should give facts on which he bases his opin- ion of drunkenness: 53 Ga., 365. Where not too drunk to shoot, can entertain malice : 59 Ga., 154. 1 ; : Bish. Cr. Law, $488 8 Am. R., 465 ; 20/292; 36/293. In larceny 27 Am. R., 416; 36/13. §4302. (4237.) (4198.) Misfortune or accident. A person shall not be found guilty of any crime or misdemeanor committed by misfortune or accident, and where it satisfactorily appears there was no evil design, or intention, or culpable neglect. Where it was murder the killing by accidental discharge of a gun while attacking the person or premises with intent to kill : 19 Ga., 103. Otherwise where the intent to commit the unlawful act was abandoned before the accidental killing: 22 Ga., 479. This law construed : 30 Ga., 385. 1 Whart. Cr. Law, §751 ; 2/§1002; 1 Arch. Cr. Pr. and PL, 49. §4303. (4238.) (4202.) Persons acting under fear not punishable. A per- son committing a crime or misdemeanor under threats or meanaces, which sufficiently show that his or her life or member was in danger, or that he or she had reasonable cause to believe, and did actually be- lieve, that his 'or her life or member was in danger shall not be found ; guilty ; and such threats and menaces being proved and established, the person or persons compelling, by said threats and menaces, the com- mission of the offense, shall be considered principal or principals, and suffer the same punishment as if he, she, or they had perpetrated the offense. 1 Bishop Cr. Law, §441 ; 1 Whart. Cr. Law, §90, a ; 1 Arch. Cr. Pr. and PL, 52. J u §4304. (4239.) (4203.) Meaning of the word "felony." The term fel- jfa^ J^l^JL ony" when used in this Code, shall be construed to mean an offense, /gs/<&J for which the offender, on conviction, shall be liable by law to be pun- // ' ished by death or imprisonment in the penitentiary, and not otherwise. Crimes by the common law, followed by judgment of forfeiture of lands or goods, or both, are felonies in England: •*» Ga., 404. Section referred to and construed: 58 Ga., 203. General Note. —No one can, unless coercion used, plead the authority of a supe- rior as an excuse for crime: 15 Ga., 346. A private acting under orders of a superior officer: 37 Ga., 194-5.