KNOWLEDGE. Information as to a fact.
Many acts are perfectly innocent when the party performing them is not aware of cer tain circumstances attending them : far ex ample, a man may pass a counterfeit note, and be guiltless, if he did not know it was so; he may receive stolen goods, if he were not aware of the fact that they were stolen. In these and the like cases it is the guilty knowledge which makes the crime.
Such guilty knowledge• is made by the statute a constituent part of the offence ; and therefore it must be averred and proved as such. But it is in general true, and may be considered as a rule almost necessary to the restraint and punishment of crimes, that when a man does that which by the common law or by statute is unlawful, and in pur suing his criminal purpose does that which constitutes another and different offence, he shall be held responsible for all the legal consequences of such criminal act. When a man, without justifiable cause, intends to wound or maim another, and in doing it kills him, it is murder, though he had no inten tion to take life. It is true that in the com mission of all crimes a guilty purpose, a criminal will and motive, are implied. But,
in, general, such bad motive or criminal will and purpose, that disposition of mind and heart which is designated by the generic and significant term "malice," is implied from the criminal act itself. But if a man does an act, which would be otherwise criminal, through mistake or accident, or by force or the compulsion of others, in which his own will and mind do not instigate him to the act or concur in it, it is matter of defence, to be averred and proved on his part, if it does not arise out of the circumstances of the case adduced on the patt of the prosecution. Per Shaw, C. J ., in 2 Mete. Mass. 192. Thus, it is not necessary, in an indictment against an unmarried man for adultery with a married woman, to aver that he knew, at the time when the offence was committed, that she was a married woman; nor is it necessary to prove such knowledge at the trial. 2 Mete. Mass. 190. See, as to the proof of guilty knowledge, 1 Bennett & H. Lead. Crim. Cas.
185-191.