Court Opinion

ID: 9687842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:51:14.535959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:32.307111
License: Public Domain

Bronson, J.
(dissenting). While I can understand my colleagues’ opinion on the intoxication issue, I cannot agree that the failure to instruct was not error on the facts of this case. The evidence of consumption of alcohol and intoxication was conflicting. The defendant’s attorney argued the question of the lack of specific intent to the jury. An instruction on intoxication was requested and denied. As my colleagues note, the defense, even though inconsistent, was permissible.
In the recent decision of People v Crittle, 390 Mich 367, 372-373; 212 NW2d 196 (1973), the *187Supreme Court of Michigan examined the intoxication defense and reversed defendant Crittle’s conviction, saying:
"The pertinent part of the Crittle jury instructions claimed to be in error was:
" 'You would not, however, be justified in acquitting * * * unless you find * * * that he was not conscious of what he was doing or why he was doing it * * *
"For a crime requiring specific intent this is not the law. The test, to use Justice Cooley’s words again, is:
" 'While it is true that drunkenness cannot excuse a crime, it is equally true that when a certain intent is a necessary element in a crime, the crime cannot have been committed when the intent did not exist * * * if the defendant, for any reason whatever, indulged no such intent, the crime cannot have been committed.’
"The Cooley test does not require the defendant to be 'not conscious of what he was doing or why he was doing it’, it only requires in a specific intent crime that the defendant not have that specific intent.
"In terms of the Crittle case, if the jury, for example, believed that the defendant was engaging in a drunken prank, however misguided, rather than intending a robbery armed, under the Cooley test the jury would find the defendant not guilty of robbery armed although it might well find him guilty of some other crime not requiring the same specific intent. Under the Crittle rule, however, even if they found defendant only intended a drunken prank, they would be required to find the defendant guilty of robbery armed because in performing the prank he presumably knew what he was doing if not why he was doing it, and hence he would be falling afoul of the Crittle instruction without in any way having the intent necessary for robbery armed. The Crittle instructions are consequently reversibly erroneous.”
In my view the evidence creates a question for the jury and the failure to instruct on the issue improperly withdrew the question from their consideration. I would reverse for a new trial.