Opinion ID: 1233910
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: failure to instruct on intoxication and specific intent

Text: (4a) Defendant next contends that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury, pursuant to CALJIC No. 4.21, that if it found that defendant was intoxicated at the time of the offense, it could consider such voluntary intoxication in determining whether defendant had the specific intent or mental state required for rape-felony-murder or for premeditated and deliberate first degree murder. [7] At trial, defendant did not request an instruction under CALJIC No. 4.21, but he did request an instruction under former CALJIC No. 8.41, a voluntary manslaughter instruction that dealt with the effect of diminished capacity caused, inter alia, by intoxication. [8] Because the diminished capacity doctrine had been repealed prior to the date of the alleged offense (see Stats. 1981, ch. 404, §§ 2, 4, pp. 1591-1592), the trial court refused to instruct under former CALJIC No. 8.41. Apparently neither the court, defense counsel, nor the prosecutor recognized, however, that the repeal of the diminished capacity doctrine did not eliminate the potential applicability of CALJIC No. 4.21, which deals with the effect of intoxication on the defendant's actual state of mind, not on his mental capacity. (Compare § 22, subd. (b) with § 22, subd. (a). [9] See also § 28, subds. (a), (b).) The issue of whether CALJIC No. 4.21 should be given was not discussed at trial. As noted, defendant now contends that his conviction for first degree murder must be reversed because of the trial court's failure to instruct the jury under CALJIC No. 4.21. The Attorney General submits a three-tiered response to defendant's argument. First, he maintains that because the effect of intoxication on a person's mental state is so widely known, a trial court never has a sua sponte duty to instruct a jury on the principles embodied in CALJIC No. 4.21. Second, he claims that even if a court may have a sua sponte duty to give CALJIC No. 4.21 under some circumstances, in this case there was insufficient evidence of intoxication to warrant a sua sponte instruction. Third and finally, he argues that even if the court erred in failing to give CALJIC No. 4.21, the error was harmless. The Attorney General's initial contention  that CALJIC No. 4.21 need never be given sua sponte  finds no support in the case law. On the contrary, a number of decisions have specifically held that in an appropriate case a trial court has a sua sponte duty to instruct the jury on the principles embodied in CALJIC No. 4.21. (See, e.g., People v. Baker (1954) 42 Cal.2d 550, 576 [268 P.2d 705]; People v. Sanchez (1950) 35 Cal.2d 522, 527-528 [219 P.2d 9]; People v. Robinson (1970) 5 Cal. App.3d 43, 48 [84 Cal. Rptr. 796]; People v. Arriola (1958) 164 Cal. App.2d 430, 435 [330 P.2d 683].) As these cases suggest, although the potential effect of intoxication on an individual's mental state may be well known to jurors, jurors may not be aware, without an instruction, that while [n]o act committed by a person while in a state of voluntary intoxication is less criminal by reason of his having been in such condition (§ 22, subd. (a)), it is nonetheless legally permissible for jurors to consider a defendant's voluntary intoxication in determining whether he acted with the specific intent or prescribed mental state required for a particular offense. (§ 22, subd. (b).) Thus, when the evidence warrants and the defense is not inconsistent with the defendant's theory of the case (see People v. Sedeno (1974) 10 Cal.3d 703, 716 [112 Cal. Rptr. 1, 518 P.2d 913]), the principle embodied in CALJIC No. 4.21 is one of the general principles of law (see People v. St. Martin (1970) 1 Cal.3d 524, 531 [83 Cal. Rptr. 166, 463 P.2d 390]) on which the trial court must instruct the jury even in the absence of a request. The Attorney General's second point  that the evidence presented at the guilt phase in this case was insufficient to warrant such an instruction  is, however, well taken. In People v. Flannel (1979) 25 Cal.3d 668 [160 Cal. Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d 1], a case involving the question whether there was sufficient evidence of intoxication to support a diminished capacity instruction, we explored the appropriate standard governing a trial court's duty to instruct on an issue. We explained that [i]n substance when diminished capacity is at issue a trial court first evaluates the evidence. If defendant proffers evidence enough to deserve consideration by the jury, i.e., `evidence from which a jury composed of reasonable men could have concluded that there was diminished capacity sufficient to negate the requisite criminal intent' [citation], the court must so instruct. A trial court should not, however, measure the substantiality of the evidence by undertaking to weigh the credibility of the witnesses, a task exclusively relegated to the jury. If the evidence should prove minimal and insubstantial, however, the court need not instruct on its effect. [Citations.] In other words, `[t]he court should instruct the jury on every theory of the case, but only to the extent each is supported by substantial evidence.' [Citation.] We likewise note that `[d]oubts as to the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant instructions should be resolved in favor of the accused.' [Citations.] ( Flannel, supra, 25 Cal.3d at pp. 684-685.) In the present case, defendant testified that he had about four or five beers at the first bar he visited on the night of the offense, and about four or five additional beers during the two and one-half to three hours that he was in Mr. Barry's, and also testified on cross-examination that he was higher on the night of the killing than he was when he was arrested a few days later with a blood-alcohol level measuring. 14 percent. [10] Neither defendant nor any of the other guilt phase witnesses who were at Mr. Barry's on the night in question, however, testified that defendant's beer drinking had had any noticeable effect on his mental state or actions. [11] Defendant purported to give a detailed account of all of the events of the night in question, and did not suggest that his drinking had affected his memory or conduct. Instead, his defense was simply that he had not sexually assaulted or stabbed Kim at all and that the offenses must have been committed by another individual. Given this state of the evidence, the governing authorities support the Attorney General's contention that the trial court had no duty to instruct on intoxication. In People v. Bandhauer (1967) 66 Cal.2d 524 [58 Cal. Rptr. 332, 426 P.2d 900], for example, the court concluded that although the evidence demonstrated that the defendant had had six or seven beers in several bars in the hours immediately preceding the crime, because there was no evidence that his drinking had any substantial effect on him, or that he was so intoxicated that he did not or could not harbor malice ( id. at p. 528), the trial court had not erred in refusing to give an intoxication instruction. Similarly, in People v. Flannel, supra, 25 Cal.3d 668, 685-686, the court held that while there was evidence that the defendant had consumed at least six cans of beer and several shots of whiskey on the day of the crime and the defendant had testified somewhat equivocally as to his own intoxication, because all of the eyewitnesses had testified that the defendant was acting normal and that the alcohol had no effect on his behavior the trial court did not err in declining to give an intoxication instruction. (5) (See fn. 12.), (4b) Because in this case there was no evidence presented at the guilt phase suggesting that defendant's drinking had affected his mental state in a manner that might negate the specific intent or mental state required for first degree murder, the trial court did not err in failing to instruct the jury pursuant to CALJIC No. 4.21 with regard to the first degree murder charge. [12]