Opinion ID: 2630926
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Voluntary Intoxication (Letner, Tobin)

Text: Defendants contend the trial court's instructions concerning the significance of voluntary intoxication were inadequate because they failed to explain to the jury how that condition could affect the mental state of an aider and abettor. Defendants rely upon our decision in People v. Mendoza (1998) 18 Cal.4th 1114 [77 Cal.Rptr.2d 428, 959 P.2d 735] ( Mendoza ), in which we concluded that (1) evidence of voluntary intoxication is relevant to the extent it establishes whether an aider and abettor knew of the direct perpetrator's criminal purpose and intended to facilitate achieving that goal, even in cases in which the perpetrator intended to commit a general intent crime ( id. at pp. 1130-1133); and (2) any instructions to the jury concerning voluntary intoxication should inform the jury of the possible effect of voluntary intoxication upon the aider and abettor's mental state ( id. at p. 1134 [a trial court has no sua sponte duty to instruct on the relevance of intoxication, but if it does instruct, as the court here did, it has to do so correctly]). In the present case, the trial court instructed the jury that it could consider evidence of defendants' voluntary intoxication in deciding beyond a reasonable doubt whether they (1) possessed the required mental states for the murder charges and the lesser included homicide offenses, (2) formed the specific intent to commit robbery, burglary, and rape that is required in order to convict them of those offenses, and (3) with regard to the special circumstance allegations, formed the specific intent to commit robbery, burglary, and rape, and the specific intent to kill. The trial court separately instructed the jury concerning the elements required in order to find each defendant guilty as an aider and abettor of the crimes. Thus, the trial court's instructions in the present case, which predated Mendoza, did not explicitly inform the jury of the points we subsequently noted in that case. Assuming for the sake of argument that the trial court's instructions on this subject were inadequate, any error was harmless. (See Mendoza, supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 1134 [If the court gives any instruction at all on the relevance of intoxication [citation], it might simply instruct that the jury may consider intoxication in determining whether a defendant tried as an aider and abettor had the required mental state.].) In these circumstances, we review the instructions as a whole to determine whether it is `reasonably likely the jury misconstrued the instructions as precluding it from considering' the intoxication evidence in deciding aiding and abetting liability. [Citation.] Any error would have the effect of excluding defense evidence and is thus subject to the usual standard for state law error: `the court must reverse only if it also finds a reasonable probability the error affected the verdict adversely to defendant.' [Citation.] ( Id. at pp. 1134-1135.) Although the voluntary intoxication instructions did not specifically mention aiding and abetting, they did not preclude the jury's use of evidence of intoxication in evaluating whether defendants aided and abetted, that is, whether, pursuant to the trial court's other instructions, one defendant knew of the other defendant's criminal purpose and intentionally aided the commission of the crime. Nor did the prosecutor argue that the jury could not consider voluntary intoxication in determining whether a defendant who was an aider and abettor of the crimes formed the mental state required for aiding and abetting. There is nothing in the record to indicate the jury would not have understood that the mental states set forth in the voluntary intoxication instructions could apply both to the mental states required of a direct perpetrator and to those required of an aider and abettor. Moreover, neither defendant actually argued a voluntary intoxication defense to the jury. For these reasons, any error in the instructions did not preclude the jury's consideration of defense evidence, nor is it reasonably probable that different instructions would have resulted in a verdict more favorable to defendants. Defendants also challenge the use of the singular defendant in this and other instructions, because assertedly this erroneously encouraged the jury to treat them as fungible entities. The trial court, however, specifically instructed the jury that the word defendant was used in the instructions in order to emphasize that each of these defendants ... is entitled to your individual consideration, and that is why [the instructions] apply to each of them individually. The trial court also separately reminded the jury that it was required to weigh the evidence for and against each defendant individually and to reach an independent verdict as to each of them. There is no reasonable likelihood that the jury misunderstood or misapplied the instructions because of the use of the word defendant in the singular.