Opinion ID: 853750
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Find a Mitigator

Text: Hackett argues that the trial court should have found his alcoholism and intoxication on the night of the crime as a mitigating circumstance. He asserts that the State presented no evidence to contradict that he was intoxicated at the time of the killing or that he was an alcoholic. He also points out that the trial court gave two instructions on intoxication, that he presented a witness to support it as a defense at trial, and that he admitted to the moderate use of alcohol in the presentence report. [3] The finding of mitigating circumstances is within the discretion of the trial court. Legue v. State, 688 N.E.2d 408, 411 (Ind.1997). An allegation that the trial court failed to identify or find a mitigating circumstance requires the defendant to establish that the mitigating evidence is both significant and clearly supported by the record. Carter v. State, 711 N.E.2d 835, 838 (Ind.1999). The trial court is not obligated to accept the defendant's contentions as to what constitutes a mitigating circumstance. Legue, 688 N.E.2d at 411. This Court has previously rejected a claim that a trial court failed to find as a mitigating circumstance that the defendant was an alcoholic and was drunk at the time the offense was committed.... See Wilson v. State, 533 N.E.2d 114, 117 (Ind. 1989) (per curiam). The fact that appellant was drunk at the time the offense was committed went only to his ability to form intent which question was fully presented to the jury and determined by [it]. Id. More recently, in Legue, 688 N.E.2d at 411, this Court observed that we are reluctant to hold that mitigating consideration is necessarily required for sentencing when, at the time of an offense, the defendant was intoxicated.... Finding such circumstance to be mitigating may involve the consideration and evaluation of various factors, among them the degree of intoxication and the defendant's culpability in the knowing and voluntary consumption of alcohol. These matters are best left to the sound discretion of the trial court. The trial court heard all the evidence relating to intoxication at trial and additional evidence relating to Hackett's alleged alcoholism at sentencing. Although it mentioned the possibility that Hackett was sick, the trial court did not make a specific finding of mitigation based on alcoholism or intoxication at the time of the offense. This was not an abuse of discretion.