Opinion ID: 1711324
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: evidence of voluntary intoxication

Text: Anticipating that defense counsel would attempt to introduce expert testimony that Roberts's cocaine high impaired Roberts's ability to deliberate when considered with Roberts's disrhythmic activity of the frontal and temporal lobes, the state filed and the trial court sustained a motion in limine to bar such evidence for purposes of an attempt to negate a culpable mental state. During the trial Roberts made an offer of proof. Again, the trial court refused to admit the evidence. Roberts assigns error to these rulings.
[A] jury may not consider [voluntary] intoxication on the issue of the defendant's mental state. State v. Erwin, 848 S.W.2d 476, 482 (Mo. banc 1993). This rule, reiterated by the legislature in section 562.076.3, RSMo 1994, is over a century old and recognizes that a voluntarily intoxicated person maintains his or her responsibility for his or her conduct. A person who voluntarily puts himself or herself into a drugged condition is capable of forming an intent to kill. That the drugs may remove a person's inhibitions and make the person more likely to act rashly, impulsively and anti-socially and increase the person's susceptibility to passion and anger does not alter the person's capacity to intend to kill. Section 562.076.3 recognizes an exception to this general rule. Evidence that a person was in a voluntarily intoxicated or drugged condition may be admissible when otherwise relevant on issues of conduct but in no event shall it be admissible for the purpose of negating a mental state which is an element of the offense. Section 562.076.3 prohibits a defendant from introducing evidence of voluntary intoxication as per se proof of an inability to form a culpable mental state. However, the statute permits the introduction of voluntary intoxication evidence to rebut the inferences the state seeks to draw from a defendant's conduct. State v. Taylor, 929 S.W.2d 925, 928 (Mo.App.1996). Roberts's argument for the admission of the intoxication evidence proceeds along two lines: First, he notes that Erwin says: The circumstances under which intoxication may be relied upon to establish the defense of diminished mental capacity is not properly before us in this case and, therefore, need not be decided. Id. at 484. The legislature adopted section 562.076.3 after this Court decided Erwin . Second, he argues: (1) that evidence of his drugged condition is admissible to explain his conduct; (2) that his conduct is significant regarding his mental state; and (3) where evidence of a voluntary drugged condition explains his conduct, the trial court errs in not admitting the evidence. As to the first argument, the defense of diminished mental capacity Roberts offered at trial admits the acts committed but denies that he possessed the mental ability to deliberate because of the effects of the cocaine on his pre-existing mental condition. Roberts does not explain how this evidence is otherwise relevant to issues of conduct. The evidence Roberts argues the trial court should have admitted was evidence of the effects of cocaine. He claims that the expert testimony would have shown that the cocaine decreased his ability to control his primitive urges. His argument is an attempt to show that the cocaine itself relieved him of whatever capacity he possessed to deliberate by altering the chemical balance in his already-unbalanced brain. Section 562.076.3 clearly and unambiguously prohibits introduction of a voluntary drugged condition to negate a culpable mental state, even where the drugged condition exacerbates a tendency toward rage and anti-social behavior. If the underlying mental condition does not result in diminished capacity without the drug, the presence of the drug does not change the evidentiary calculus. We conclude that where a defendant's argument amounts to a but-for-the-drugs-I-voluntarily-took-I-would-not-have-committed-this-crime-argument, section 562.076.3 and Erwin prohibits the introduction of evidence of a voluntary drugged condition as per se proof that he could not possess the requisite culpable mental state. The second prong of Roberts's argument focuses on his conduct during, not prior to, the murder. He claims that the state used the horrible manner in which he murdered Ms. Taylor to show that he intended to kill her. He says that the evidence he wished to present is relevant conduct evidence under section 562.073.3 and would have shown the jury that it was impossible for [him] to break off the attack against Ms. Taylor once it started. (Emphasis added.) Reply Br. at 12. Absent a confession by the actor that reveals his or her intent, a person's mental state can be known only through the person's actions. Evidence of a person's conduct raises inferences that point toward or away from a conclusion that the person possessed a culpable mental state. Evidence of conduct that is relevant to the issue of deliberation in a first degree murder case falls into a least four broad categories. First, there may be direct evidence that the defendant did or said certain things in advance of the act to facilitate the crime. This is planning evidence. Second, there may be evidence of a pre-existing relationship between the victim and the defendant prior to the murder that provides a motive for the killing. This is bad-blood evidence. Third, there may be no direct evidence of planning, but the complicated manner in which the defendant carried out the crime shows that the murder could not have been committed as a result of a spur-of-the-moment decision to act. This is complicated-design evidence. Fourth, there may be evidence that the defendant failed to take action that a person who did not possess a guilty mind would be expected to take. Most often this conduct occurs after the crime is committed. This is failure-to-act evidence. Conduct evidence to which voluntary intoxication is relevant under section 562.076.3 is most often failure-to-act evidence. This is because evidence of a defendant's failure to act raises inferences of a guilty mind. Chemical impairment of the reasoning processes may rebut these inferences and is therefore relevant to issues of conduct. State v. Taylor, 929 S.W.2d 925, 928 (Mo.App.1996), upon which Roberts relies, is a failure-to-act case. But Roberts's case is a planning evidence case. For this reason, Taylor does not assist Roberts. In a planning-evidence case, intoxication may increase a person's willingness to carry out a murderous plan, but it neither explains the deliberative acts nor rebuts the inferences of planning those acts raise. This is because the purpose of the intoxication evidence is to show that the defendant did not have the capacity to deliberate because of that condition. Evidence claiming a drug-induced absence of the capacity to deliberate does not rebut nor explain planning evidence clearly showing deliberation. Thus, intoxication evidence in a planning evidence case is an attempt to show that the defendant could not deliberate because of the intoxication. This is evidence that section 562.076.3 expressly prohibits. The planning evidence in this caseRoberts's carrying a hammer with him to Ms. Taylor's home after promising his companions that he would take care of their drug shortfallis proof of his deliberation. The numerous, unprovoked, and ultimately-fatal hammer blows to her head merely carried out his already-formed plan to kill her. Roberts's claim that the cocaine made it impossible to stop the murder after delivering the first few hammer blows does not rebut the state's evidence of deliberation prior to the murder. The point is denied.
Roberts also believes the trial court erred in giving the jury the following instruction: The state must prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. However, in determining the defendant's guilt or innocence, you are instructed that an intoxicated or drug condition whether from alcohol or drugs will not relieve a person of responsibility for his conduct. Roberts contends that the instruction directs the jury to assume that a voluntarily intoxicated person has the requisite mental state to commit the crime in question. This assumption, in effect, relieves the state of its burden of proving all of the requisite elements of the crime. Roberts claims that a similar instruction was found improper by this Court in State v. Erwin, 848 S.W.2d 476 (Mo. banc 1993). The instruction given is based upon MAI-CR 3d 310.50, which was revised in response to this Court's decision in Erwin by adding the first sentence regarding the state's burden to prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt. This instruction does not suffer from the infirmity of the previous MAI-CR 3d 310.50 (revised) condemned in Erwin . This instruction has been upheld by all three districts of the Missouri court of appeals. See State v. Pointer, 932 S.W.2d 871, 873-874 (Mo.App.1996); overruled on other grounds, State v. Carson, 941 S.W.2d 518 (Mo.1997); State v. Armstrong, 930 S.W.2d 449, 451-452 (Mo.App.1996); and State v. Bell, 906 S.W.2d 737, 740 (Mo.App.1995), overruled on other grounds, State v. Carson, 941 S.W.2d 518 (Mo.1997). Moreover, similar instructional language was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in Montana v. Egelhoff, U.S. ___, ____ _ ____, 116 S.Ct. 2013, 2022____ 23, 135 L.Ed.2d 361 (1996). The instruction was proper. The point is denied.