Court Opinion

ID: 9667508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:47:36.877156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:14.479716
License: Public Domain

COFFEY, J.
(dissenting). I agree with Justice Callow’s dissenting opinion in part. I write separately, however, to express my disagreement with the focus of both his dissent and the majority opinion, and to express my dissatisfaction with the failure to relate the instruction given to the facts of record.
In Moes v. State, 91 Wis.2d 756, 284 N.W.2d 66 (1979), we held that no defense included in the criminal code could operate so as to place the burden of proof on the defendant, notwithstanding that it was constitutionally permissible under Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197 (1977), to place the burden of proof on the defendant when the defense is not sufficiently connected with an element of the crime so as to relieve the state of its burden of proving each and every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. We said, in an opinion authored by Justice Callow:
“The Wisconsin jury instructions recognize this burden [that the state must disprove statutory defenses which have been raised] and provide that, if the defendant introduces evidence to establish a statutory defense to criminal liability, the defendant must be found not guilty unless the jury is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the defendant notwithstanding the proper defense, (footnotes omitted.)” 91 Wis.2d 756, 765, 284 N.W.2d 66 (1979).
There is no federal constitutional question presented in this case. If, by modifying the standard instruction on intoxication so as to state that the defendant had to “establish” the defense of intoxication, the trial judge thereby shifted the burden of persuasion to the defendant, there was a violation of sec. 939.70, Stats., which pro*445vides: “No provision of chs. 939 to 948 shall be construed as changing the existing law with respect to presumption of innocence or burden of proof.” As construed in Moes, supra, this statute requires the state to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt the statutory defense of intoxication once evidence has been introduced to “establish” it. The question is whether the jury might have misunderstood and misapplied the instruction so as to relieve the state of its burden of disproving the defendant’s defense of intoxication. Under the facts of this case, I see no possibility that the jury did so.
The only evidence as to the extent , of the defendant’s intoxication was his testimony that he remembered nothing after he set out to find Sue Liddle on the morning of June 3rd. If the jury had believed the defendant, it would have been required to acquit him under the instruction given, including the language that, “If you have any reasonable doubt as to whether or not he was not intoxicated, you must give the defendant the benefit of that doubt and not find him guilty of first degree murder.”
No reasonable juror could have interpreted the foregoing statement as meaning that the defendant had the burden of proving the requisite degree of intoxication beyond a reasonable doubt. As the dissent points out, the jury was repeatedly instructed that beyond a reasonable doubt was the measure of the state’s burden of proof. The only reasonable interpretation is that if the jury had a reasonable doubt as to the degree of the defendant’s intoxication, it must give him that benefit of doubt and find him not guilty.
As presented to the jury, this case involved only an issue as to the defendant’s credibility. If he had testified that even though he caused the death of Randall Quandt, he did not intend to do so, essentially the same credibility *446issue would have arisen. No issue is taken with the adequacy of the instructions on the jury’s duty to determine credibility.
The majority sees the need to establish rules to guide the trial judge in the determination as to what evidence is necessary to place intoxication at issue. If this is intended to be any more than an application of the familiar rule that the judge is required to give only those instructions which are warranted by the evidence, I disagree. The determination of credibility is a function of the jury as the trier of fact, not the judge, unless the testimony is in complete contradiction to the undisputed physical facts. Judges should be very careful not to refuse instructions merely because the evidence supporting them is improbable. The proper test is whether the supporting evidence is relevant and appreciable. Hawthorne v. State, 99 Wis.2d 673, 299 N.W.2d 866 (1981). The voluntary intoxication instruction is to be given if the evidence viewed in a light most favorable to the accused permits the inference that he did not intend his acts. State v. Verhasselt, 83 Wis.2d 647, 266 N.W.2d 342 (1978).
I also disagree with the dissent when it says that the defense of voluntary intoxication should be removed from the statutes and when it criticizes the standard instruction on voluntary intoxication. Long before the enactment of sec. 939.42(2), Stats., as sec. 339.42(2) of the 1955 Criminal Code, our cases recognized voluntary intoxication as a defense to first degree murder, if the defendant was thereby rendered incapable of forming a design to kill. See: Hempton v. State, 111 Wis. 127, 86 N.W. 596 (1901). Repealing the statute would have no effect on the common law rule which it codifies.
I do not agree that the instruction on voluntary intoxication, Wis JI — Criminal, sec. 765, is longer than necessary because it must be complete in order for the jury *447to properly weigh and analyze the issue. Neither is the instruction susceptible to challenge. If it had been given without change in the case at bar, it would not have reached this court. The substitute proposal, that intoxication alone does not relieve one of criminal responsibility, but should be taken into account in considering intent, is not a correct statement of the law. The jury is not to take the intoxication of the defendant into account unless it determines that the degree of intoxication casts a reasonable doubt on the defendant’s intent. The jury was so instructed, and the instruction was not erroneous as applied to the facts of this case, which raised only the issue of the credibility of the defendant’s claim that he was so intoxicated that he was unable to remember the incident.
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the decision of the court of appeals affirming the judgment of conviction for first-degree murder.