Opinion ID: 853674
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Instruction on Voluntary Intoxication Defense

Text: The defendant first contends that the trial court erroneously instructed the jury on the defense of voluntary intoxication. He argues that it invaded the province of the jury, mandated a conviction upon the finding of certain facts, and mandated a minimum degree of intoxication, in violation of Article I, Section 19 of the Indiana Constitution. [4] The defendant challenges the following language from Final Instruction No. 34 regarding the defense of voluntary intoxication, given over his objection at trial: Mere intoxication is not sufficient unless there is some mental incapacity resulting therefrom as will render a person incapable of thinking deliberately and medi[t]ating rationally. A defendant should not be relieved of responsibility if he could devise a plan, operate equipment, instruct behavior of others or carry out acts requiring physical skill. Record at 208. Citing Curran v. State, 675 N.E.2d 341, 344 (Ind.Ct.App.1996), the defendant contends that this instruction impermissibly invaded the province of the jury, violating Article I, Section 19 by mandating a conviction upon the finding of certain facts and by requiring the jury to find specific facts in order to accept the voluntary intoxication defense. The Curran court found that this same instruction invaded the province of the jury in violation of Article I, Section 19 of the Indiana Constitution because it `[bound] the minds and consciences of the jury to return a verdict of guilty upon finding certain facts,' Curran, 675 N.E.2d at 344 (quoting Pritchard v. State, 248 Ind. 566, 575, 230 N.E.2d 416, 421 (1967)), [5] and because it improperly required a certain degree of intoxication be proven before the jury could accept the defense. Id. Nevertheless, the Curran court held that the erroneous instruction was harmless because the evidence is such that the jury could not have properly found that Curran was so intoxicated that he was incapable of forming the requisite criminal intent. 675 N.E.2d at 345. In White v. State, 675 N.E.2d 345 (Ind.Ct.App.1996), the Court of Appeals addressed the same issue and found a similar instruction likewise erroneous but not harmless in light of the evidence. A contrary view was recently expressed in Cheshier v. State, which expressly disapproved of Curran. 690 N.E.2d 1226, 1228 n. 2 (Ind.Ct.App.1998). The Cheshier majority observed that we have repeatedly used the challenged language in our opinions. Id. at 1228 (citing Legue v. State, 688 N.E.2d 408, 410 (Ind. 1997); Miller v. State, 541 N.E.2d 260, 263 (Ind.1989); Terry v. State, 465 N.E.2d 1085, 1088 (Ind.1984)). See also Horan v. State, 682 N.E.2d 502, 509 (Ind.1997). As Judge Sullivan noted in his separate opinion concurring in result in Cheshier, however, in none of these cases did we approve of a jury instruction containing this language. 690 N.E.2d at 1229. Rather, we were evaluating whether the evidence supported the giving of an intoxication instruction or was sufficient for the resulting conviction. While articulating our appellate rationale for these issues, we did not intend to create a trial standard for application by juries. The mere fact that language appears in appellate opinions does not necessarily make it proper for jury instructions. See Spence v. State, 429 N.E.2d 214, 216 (Ind.1981); Meek v. State, 629 N.E.2d 932, 933 (Ind.Ct.App.1994). Cf. Myers v. State, 532 N.E.2d 1158, 1159 (Ind.1989). We hold that it was error to instruct the jury that the intoxication defense was unavailable if the defendant could devise a plan, operate equipment, instruct behavior of others or carry out acts requiring physical skill. Record at 208. As noted in Curran, however, such an erroneous instruction will not require reversal on appeal if we find the error to be harmless in light of the trial evidence. 675 N.E.2d at 344. The evidence at trial included the defendant's audio-taped statement given to police shortly after he was taken into custody. In the defendant's statement, he detailed the place where he obtained the knife before he went to the victim's home, the sequence of events surrounding the stabbing, the locations where he found each item of jewelry he took from the home, and where the police would find the items he did not sell for cocaine. Having obtained a knife from a jar under the microwave in his mother's kitchen, he then took his mother's bicycle and rode to the victim's house. He knocked on her door, entered, and asked where her children were. Learning that the children were asleep, he began to stab the victim, but one of the children entered while he was stabbing the victim. The victim told her daughter to run out the back door and tried to get herself out the front door, but the defendant grabbed the child and threatened to kill her because he knew [the victim] wouldn't go out that door and sacrifice her daughter's life like that [be]cause... she [was] probably thinking ... [I would] stab [her daughter] too. Record at 568. The defendant then grabbed the daughter and demanded that she help him find money or other valuables. While they were looking for money, a younger child awoke, and the defendant tried to keep her from seeing her mother, but ran from the house when he was unable to keep the child out of the room. The defendant returned to his mother's house by bicycle. He washed the knife and replaced it in the kitchen. Noticing that his shirt was bloody, he removed it and hid it behind a chair. Then he went into the bathroom and washed blood from his hands and the rings that he had taken. From this evidence, we conclude that a reasonable jury could not have found that the defendant was so intoxicated that he was incapable of forming the requisite intent. The instruction error was harmless.