Opinion ID: 2517123
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Inability to Form Specific Intent

Text: {26} At trial, Defendant theorized that the organic brain damage he suffered years earlier caused him some mental disease or disorder that made him incapable of forming the requisite intent for first degree murder. He did not offer expert witness testimony to support his theory, and, based on the absence of such testimony, the trial court refused to instruct the jury on that theory. Defendant now challenges that ruling, alleging that the instruction does not require expert testimony, and therefore that the trial court erred in denying the instruction. {27} The defense of inability to form specific intent allows a defendant to avoid culpability for willful and deliberate murder whenever he or she was unable to form the specific intent required to commit the crime. See State v. Padilla, 66 N.M. 289, 295, 347 P.2d 312, 316 (1959); see also UJI 14-5110. The defense requires evidence of the condition of the mind of the accused at the time of the crime, together with the surrounding circumstances, . . . to prove that the situation was such that the defendant was unable to form specific intent, and thus lacked any deliberate or premeditated design. Padilla, 66 N.M. at 295, 347 P.2d at 316 (emphasis and quoted authority omitted). It applies in two situations: (1) when the defendant was intoxicated from the use of alcohol or drugs and (2) when the defendant suffered from a mental disease or disorder. Id.; see also UJI 14-5110. It is the latter that concerns us in this case. {28} This Court has previously recognized that expert testimony is not required when the alleged cause of the defendant's inability to form specific intent is within the realm of common knowledge and experience. See State v. Privett, 104 N.M. 79, 82, 717 P.2d 55, 58 (1986) (holding that expert testimony is not required for jury to understand how defendant's intoxication may have interfered with his ability to form specific intent because lay [persons] are capable of assessing the effects of intoxication as a matter within their common knowledge and experience). Our Court of Appeals has explained that to establish an inability to form specific intent defense, the defendant ha[s] the burden of introducing at least some competent evidence to support his [or her] claim and even the opinion testimony of nonexperts [can] provide[] the necessary competent evidence. State v. Najar, 104 N.M. 540, 543, 724 P.2d 249, 252 (Ct.App.1986). Thus, Defendant is correct insofar as he argues that the inability to form specific intent instruction does not require expert testimony, per se. However, Defendant errs by contending that nonexpert testimony will always suffice. When understanding the purported cause of a defendant's inability to form specific intent goes beyond common knowledge and experience and requires scientific or specialized knowledge, lay witnesses are not qualified to testify and expert testimony is required. [1] Cf. State v. Day, 2008-NMSC-007, ¶ 31, 143 N.M. 359, 176 P.3d 1091 (requiring scientific retrograde extrapolation evidence to prove defendant's earlier BAC based on later-obtained BAC test results because lay witness testimony regarding behavioral evidence is insufficient). {29} In this case, Defendant argued that his organic brain damage caused his inability to form specific intent. In many cases, such a connection between a defendant's medical condition and its effect on his or her ability to form specific intent will have to be established by expert testimony because the question often involves complicated medical issues that are beyond the realm of common knowledge and experience. The trial court viewed this case as one in which expert testimony was necessary to link Defendant's injury to his inability to form the requisite intent, and Defendant has not persuaded us that the trial court was wrong in that conclusion. {30} Although Defendant contends that his prior nursing experience qualified him as an expert capable of testifying about the cause of his inability to form specific intent, Defendant was never qualified as an expert at trial, and, regardless of whether he could have been so qualified, his testimony about his injury did not establish its effect on his capacity to form specific intent. When an inability to form specific intent defense is based on a mental disease or disorder, an instruction is proper only when there is evidence that reasonably tends to show that the defendant's claimed mental disease or disorder rendered the defendant incapable of forming specific intent at the time of the offense. State v. Balderama, 2004-NMSC-008, ¶ 38, 135 N.M. 329, 88 P.3d 845. The only evidence that Defendant presented linking his organic brain damage to his inability to form specific intent was his own testimony regarding his injury. Defendant testified in detail about a head injury that he had suffered; that he had organic brain damage; that he had problems with amnesia; that he underwent various therapies to recover from his brain injury; that he had been on several different medications; and that his friends sometimes thought he was out in left field. Neither Defendant nor any other witness testified about how those facts showed that he was unable to form the requisite intent at the time of the offense, and thus the evidence did not reasonably tend to show that Defendant was unable to form specific intent at the time of the murder. Therefore, we hold that the trial court properly refused to instruct the jury on inability to form specific intent.