Opinion ID: 673444
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Intoxication/Insanity Instruction

Text: 10 Lackey contends that the following instruction, given pursuant to section 8.04 of the Texas Penal Code, prevented the jury from giving mitigating effect to his evidence of voluntary intoxication at the time of the offense: 11 You are instructed that under our law neither intoxication nor temporary insanity of mind caused by intoxication shall constitute any defense to the commission of crime. Evidence of temporary insanity caused by intoxication may be considered in mitigation of the penalty attached to the offense. 12 By the term intoxication as used in this Charge is meant that at the time of the conduct charged, the defendant, as a result of voluntary intoxication, either did not know that his conduct was wrong or was incapable of conforming his conduct to the requirements of the law which he has found to have violated. 13 Now, if you find from the evidence that the defendant, Clarence Allen Lackey, at the time of the commission of the offense for which he is on trial was laboring under temporary insanity as above defined, produced by voluntary intoxication as defined, that you may take such temporary insanity into consideration in mitigation of the penalty which you attach to the offense for which you have found him guilty. 14 Lackey argues that the instruction precluded the jury from considering mitigating evidence of voluntary intoxication that did not rise to the level of temporary insanity. In effect, Lackey is arguing that the jury was precluded from considering evidence that he did not ask them to consider. He did not present evidence or argue at trial that his voluntary intoxication amounted to anything less than temporary insanity. Rather, he presented evidence that his criminal conduct was attributable to an alcoholic blackout, which caused him to lose contact with reality and rendered him capable of engaging in automatic behavior. Because Lackey failed to proffer evidence of non-insane intoxication in mitigation of punishment, whether the jury could properly consider it is not a proper subject for habeas review. See Delo v. Lashley, --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 1222, 1225, 122 L.Ed.2d 620 (1993) (Nothing in the Constitution obligates state courts to give mitigating circumstantial instructions when no evidence is offered to support them.) 15