Opinion ID: 853370
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Terry and Sills and the Debate over Strict Liability

Text: We do not agree with Terry v. State, 465 N.E.2d 1085, 1088 (Ind.1984), to the extent it suggested that the Indiana Constitution contains an inherent bar to the elimination of voluntary intoxication as a means of negating the mens rea element of a crime. And although we agree with the concurrence that constitutional precedent should not be lightly disregarded, we do not consider Terry and Sills v. State, 463 N.E.2d 228, 240 (Ind.1984), overruled on other grounds by Wright v. State, 658 N.E.2d 563, 569-70 (Ind.1995), to contain more than casual references to the state constitution. As already noted, there are limits on what the legislature may criminalize, even in the absence of a specific constitutional bar. Because there is no general due process clause in our state constitution, and no specific provision addressing the issue, if there is a mens rea requirement that the state constitution imposes on this or any other crime, it must derive from this fairness concept. But courts must be careful to avoid substituting their judgment for those of the more politically responsive branches. Federal due process limitations on substantive provisions of criminal law are largely a dead letter today, having yielded to procedural ( Brady [5] ) and structural ( Miranda [6] , Batson [7] ) reforms in the last half century. Finding substantive criminal law constraints in our state constitution is even harder where there is no specific provision such as the Ex Post Facto clause. Federal substantive due process jurisprudence as a means of judicial override of legislative policy is often criticized as anchorless. In the Indiana Constitution, we have not even a due process clause to hold our jurisprudential vessel steady against the shifting tides of judicial inclinations. We also have the constitutional directive in Article I, Section 1 that all power is inherent in the people. This too suggests deference to legislation that does not run afoul of a specific constitutional provision. For all of the foregoing reasons, we think constitutional rights not grounded in a specific constitutional provision should not be readily discovered. Specifically, we do not agree with the Sills concurrence, cited with approval in Terry, to the extent it takes the view that intent is a constitutionally required element of every crime. To support that view, the concurrence in Sills explains the case law supporting strict criminal liability as in reality finding an implied intent. 463 N.E.2d at 241. Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 80 S.Ct. 215, 4 L.Ed.2d 205 (1959), is cited for the proposition that every crime requires intent, even though that case expressly stated that, it is doubtless competent for the States to create strict criminal liabilities by defining criminal offenses without any element of scienter. Id. at 150, 80 S.Ct. 215. To explain this apparent rejection of the necessity of a mens rea element, the Sills concurrence contended that some laws, e.g., food and drug regulatory statutes, require strict liability to serve their purposes, and, therefore, it is necessary to imply intent under some circumstances. 463 N.E.2d at 241. We assume the reference is to cases such as United States v. Park, 421 U.S. 658, 672-73, 95 S.Ct. 1903, 44 L.Ed.2d 489 (1975), and United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.S. 277, 281, 64 S.Ct. 134, 88 L.Ed. 48 (1943), upholding strict criminal liability under some circumstances. We think it is more candid to acknowledge, as Smith holds, that some crimes do not have a mens rea component, rather than to contend that intent is always required, but may be implied if necessary. 361 U.S at 150, 80 S.Ct. 215. We do agree that a crime requires some voluntary action, and perhaps that is all Terry and Sills address. Sills cites an example that was contended to illustrate the need for an intent requirement for every crime. Although acknowledging that running a red light is an offense as to which lack of intent is no defense, Sills cites it as a case where implied intent is necessary. 463 N.E.2d at 241. To prove its point, Sills posed the example of a motorist who is struck by a rock and rendered unconscious while the car proceeds through the light. Id. The contention is that no judge or jury should convict under those conditions. The conclusion is generally correct, but we think this example does not establish that intent is an element, but rather reflects the usual assumption that voluntary action is a component of a crime. See Ind. Code § 35-41-2-1 (1998); cf. McClain v. State, 678 N.E.2d 104, 107 (Ind.1997). To the extent some have suggested that statutes similar to this eliminate the commonly understood requirement of voluntary actions necessary for culpability, [8] we disagree. The statute provides that voluntary intoxication may not be taken into consideration in determining the existence of a mental state that is an element of the offense. Like all statutes in derogation of the common law, it is to be strictly construed. Durham v. U-Haul Int'l, 745 N.E.2d 755, 759 (Ind.2001). We think an element of the offense refers to each unique mental element set forth in the statute defining the crime, and not to the general requirement of voluntary action that underlies all crimes, but is typically not articulated in the statutes except as it is found in the overriding provision of Indiana Code section 35-41-2-1. [9] The Indiana intoxication statute eliminates the requirement that the voluntarily intoxicated defendant acted knowingly or intentionally as to those crimes that include those elements. [10] But even if there may be an act rendered involuntary by intoxication, itself a doubtful premise in most circumstances, the legislature has decreed that the intoxication, if voluntary, supplies the general requirement of a voluntary act. That is sufficient to place the voluntarily intoxicated offender at risk for the consequences of his actions, even if it is claimed that the capacity has been obliterated to achieve the otherwise requisite mental state for a specific crime. The concurrence contends that the need for voluntary acts cannot be supplied by voluntary intoxication. As we see it, the issues are: first, what conduct the legislature has chosen to prohibit; and second, whether there is any constitutional bar to criminalizing that conduct. It may be unwise to impose strict liability for actions taken by voluntarily intoxicated persons. But the issue before us is whether the legislature has so provided, and, if so, whether it is unconstitutional. If the statute so provides, and the constitution presents no barrier to that legislation, evidence of voluntary intoxication may not be presented to negate mens rea. Providing that a voluntarily intoxicated person is responsible for his or her actions to the same degree as a sober person does not criminalize activity that is wholly innocent because of ignorance of an obscure law or lack of knowledge of relevant facts. Rather, it substitutes an element of voluntary intoxication to the point that a person can claim ignorance of his own actions for the mens rea otherwise required as to the wrongful conduct itself. In this respect, it is similar to felony murder, which accepts the mens rea of the underlying felony as sufficient for murder. Both involve attaching more serious penal consequences to an activity that the legislature may view as reprehensible in itself if it produces greater harm than it typically does. As such, neither presents the problem of criminalizing activity that most would regard as wholly blameless, [11] or even the issue of individual criminal responsibility for organizational failures without proof of individual mens rea. [12] Sanchez individually and alone inflicted this night of terror on his victim. His conduct was plainly at the core of the circle of culpability. The issue is whether the legislature may hold him criminally responsible notwithstanding a claim of intoxication. We think the legislature had conventional crimesmurder, battery, rape, and so forthin mind when it provided that voluntary intoxication does not negate the mens rea element. So applied, that treatment of intoxication does not criminalize activity that ordinary citizens would consider benign. Rather, it supplements the knowing and intentional elements with a third condition. The statute acts qualitatively the same as felony murder, and both are constitutional forms of strict liability. If and when we are confronted with a claim that intoxication was accompanied by an act wholly innocent if taken by a sober person, we can consider the issues those facts raise. Until 1997 a voluntarily intoxicated defendant in Indiana could claim that his actions were neither knowing or intentional. Yet the pages of the Northeast Reporter are full of cases reciting that the defendant's action in executing a plan, operating a motor vehicle, or otherwise demonstrating physical capacity were enough to establish the requisite mens rea as a matter of law. Assuming intoxication has both rendered a person incapable of apprehending the consequences or wrongfulness of his acts and still left him capable of performing them, we think the legislature may constitutionally provide that the perpetrator whose ignorance is the product of self-induced intoxication rather than moral blindness is equally culpable. In this case, there can be no doubt from the extended sequence of events that Sanchez acted voluntarily, however impaired he may have been. The legislature has chosen to treat ignorance of the consequences of one's act induced by voluntary intoxication the same as simple ignorance of the law. Even strong opponents of strict liability doctrine agree that it may be appropriate for some crimes. Professor Hart's work is usually cited as one of the fountainheads of attacks on strict liability. See Henry M. Hart, Jr., The Aims of the Criminal Law, 23 Law & Contemp. Probs. 401 (1958). But he recognized that any member of the community who does these things without knowing they are criminal is blameworthy, as much for his lack of knowledge as for his actual conduct. Id. at 413.