Opinion ID: 2335399
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Refusal to Instruct Jury on Intoxication

Text: Appellant argues that the trial court erred in refusing his request for a jury instruction on voluntary intoxication. [F]ailure to give an instruction embodying a defense theory that negates guilt of the crime charged, when properly requested and supported by any evidence, is necessarily reversible error. Gray v. United States, 549 A.2d 347, 350-51 (D.C. 1988) (citations omitted). We have held that [t]he evidence required to warrant the `intoxication-defense' instruction must reveal such a degree of complete drunkenness that a person is incapable of forming the necessary intent essential to the commission of the crime charged. ( Charles C. ) Smith, Sr. v. United States, 309 A.2d 58, 59 (D.C.1973), quoted in Washington v. United States, 689 A.2d 568, 573 (D.C. 1997); see also Powell v. United States, 455 A.2d 405, 412 n. 10 (D.C.1982); Nicholson v. United States, 368 A.2d 561, 565 (D.C.1977); Williams v. United States, 331 A.2d 341, 343 (D.C.1975). There must be evidence that the defendant has reached a point of incapacitating intoxication. Smith, 309 A.2d at 59, quoted in Washington, 689 A.2d at 573. Drunkenness, while efficient to reduce or remove inhibitions, does not readily negate intent. Washington, 689 A.2d at 573 (quoting Heideman v. United States, 104 U.S.App. D.C. 128, 131, 259 F.2d 943, 946 (1958)). In assessing whether an intoxication instruction is warranted, [t]he trial court may look to the facts surrounding the offense to decide if the evidence could create a reasonable doubt in the mind of a reasonable juror as to whether a defendant possessed the requisite specific intent. Washington, 689 A.2d at 574. In the case of a robbery, the defendant's careful advance preparation for the crime showed that he was working `logically, rationally and efficiently to the execution of his criminal purpose.' Id. (quoting Heideman, 104 U.S.App. D.C. at 131-32, 259 F.2d at 946-47). Here, as the trial court found, the nature of appellant's crimes and the way in which they were executed reveal a carefully designed and implemented scheme that would be difficult to attribute to someone completely incapacitated by intoxication. Although there was evidence that appellant had spent the morning before the robbery drinking and smoking blunts, and by his own testimony, by the time he left the house where he was getting high, he was falling down from intoxication, the manner in which he committed the armed robbery of a public establishment belies the claim that he was incapacitated. According to store employees, appellant concealed his face, ordered people to the back of the store, retrieved the store's security camera, made the manager take off his clothes (presumably to keep him from following appellant out of the store), and escaped in a getaway car waiting in the alley. As the trial court noted, these were all very deliberate and rational acts. See id. We conclude, therefore, that the evidence did not support a defense of intoxication, and the trial court properly refused the requested jury instruction. [5]