Opinion ID: 1893409
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the proffered defenses

Text: Appellants, unsuccessful in their attempt to prevail on the motion to dismiss, made an extensive proffer of evidence and jury instructions to the trial court. The proffer, boiled down to its essentials, is as follows: Defendants offer to prove, through their own testimony, the testimony of psychologists and psychiatrists who have interviewed, examined, and diagnosed them, and through the testimony of expert witnesses who have substantial reputations in the field of drug dependence, that each defendant was a heroin dependent person at the time of [his] arrest; that as such each was unable to restrain from further use of injectable heroin; that each had an overpowering desire or need to continue taking the drug and to obtain it by any means either because of the psychic dependence or the physical dependence on the drug, or both; that this dependence took the form of an overpowering and irresistible craving or compulsion to continue taking the drug and to obtain it by any means; that this dependence resulted in such an overwhelming involvement with the use of heroin and the securing of its supply that their need to obtain and use it was the central feature of their lives; and that it resulted in a substantial impairment of their behavior controls and lack of choice or control and directly caused the acts with which they are presently charged. Concomitantly, appellants proffered that they were so far addicted to the use of such habit-forming narcotic drugs as to have lost the power of self-control with reference to [their] addiction, D.C.Code 1973, § 24-602, 28 U.S.C. § 2901(a) (1970), and that they were drug dependent person(s) in that each was using heroin and was in a state of psychic or physical dependence, or both, arising from the use of that substance on a continuous basis and were under a strong compulsion to take the substance on a continuous basis in order to experience its psychic effects or to avoid the discomfort caused by its absence. 42 U.S.C. § 201(q) (1970). Appellants then proffered a series of jury instructions which boil down to an instruction that the jury must acquit the accused unless it is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he was not heroin dependent at the time of the offense or that his possession of heroin or narcotics paraphernalia was not a direct product of his heroin dependence. The jury was to be instructed that a person is heroin dependent if, by reason of long and intensive use of heroin, the ability to refrain from using heroin is substantially impaired. Although the proffer is in the language of federal and local statutes relating to drug addiction in a medical sense, appellants' proposed defense is based upon common law doctrines of criminal responsibility which they seek to have extended to provide a defense for the heroin addicted individual who is charged with possession of heroin or possession of implements of crime (narcotics paraphernalia) and whose possession is for personal use only. Simply put, they argue the heroin dependent individual is compelled to commit the crimes of possession of heroin and the narcotics paraphernalia necessary to administer it by reason of addiction. The trial court declined to permit appellants to develop the evidence to support their theory of defense when it ruled as a matter of law that their proffered test of criminal responsibility was not in accord with existing precedent because it was not framed in terms of the insanity defense. [14] It is from this ruling that this appeal is mainly taken. The United States Supreme Court has stated that [t]he contention that an injury can amount to a crime only when inflicted by intention is no provincial or transient notion. It is as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as a belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil. Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 250, 72 S.Ct. 240, 243, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952) (footnote omitted). In this jurisdiction, as in most others, criminal responsibility is discussed most frequently in the area of insanity. What we are asked to do in this case is to develop a new limited doctrine of criminal responsibility because, according to appellants, its time has come. The process of adjustment of the common law, to fit the times, has traditionally been the province of the states. Powell v. Texas, 392 U.S. 514, 536, 88 S.Ct. 2145, 20 L. Ed.2d 1254 (1968) (plurality opinion). We must determine at the threshold, however, whether Congress' treatment of the subject precludes us from establishing a new rule of criminal responsibility in the area of drug addiction, if we were so inclined.