Court Opinion

ID: 9735089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:00:34.008922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:55.120945
License: Public Domain

EAGEN, Justice
(dissenting).
In the past, this Court has never deviated from the position that voluntary intoxication, no matter how gross *128or long continued, neither exonerates nor excuses a person from his criminal acts. Commonwealth v. Tarver, 446 Pa. 233, 284 A.2d 759 (1971); Commonwealth v. Reid, 432 Pa. 319, 247 A.2d 783 (1968); Commonwealth v. Simmons, 361 Pa. 391, 65 A.2d 353 (1949); Commonwealth v. Cleary, 135 Pa. 64, 19 A. 1017 (1890). “If it were [so], all crimes would, in a great measure, depend for their criminality on the pleasure of their perpetrators, since they may pass into that state when they will.” Keenan v. Commonwealth, 44 Pa. 55, 58 (1862). Today, however the majority has adopted a new position which, in effect, will allow voluntary intoxication to serve as an excuse for criminal responsibility.
The rationale behind our long-standing rule as to voluntary ingestion of intoxicants and drugs is apparent. An individual who places himself in a position to have no control over his actions must be held to intend the consequences. Such a principle is absolutely essential to the protection of life and property. There is, in truth, no injustice in holding a person responsible for his acts committed in a state of voluntary intoxication. It is a duty which everyone owes to his fellowmen and to society, to preserve, so far as it lies in his own power, the inestimable gift of reason. If such reason is perverted or destroyed by fixed disease, though brought on by his own vices, the law holds him not accountable. But if by a voluntary act he temporarily casts off the restraints of reason and conscience, no wrong is done him if he is considered answerable for any injury which he, in that state, may do to others or to society. See generally, People v. Rogers, 18 N.Y. 9; 21 Am.Jur.2d Criminal Law § 107.
While adhering to the above-mentioned rule, this Court has recognized there may be instances where an individual has voluntarily placed himself in a state of intoxication so as to be incapable of conceiving any intent. In those instances, we have permitted evidence of such in*129toxication to lower the degree of guilt within a crime, but only where the Legislature has specifically provided for varying degrees of guilt within a crime. Commonwealth v. Tarver, supra; Commonwealth v. Ingram, 440 Pa. 239, 270 A.2d 190 (1970); Commonwealth v. Brown, 436 Pa. 423, 260 A.2d 742 (1970); Commonwealth v. Walker, 283 Pa. 468, 129 A. 453 (1925); Commonwealth v. Eyler, 217 Pa. 512, 66 A. 746 (1907). Thus “[i]f the charge is felonious homicide, intoxication, which is so great as to render the accused incapable of forming a wilful, deliberate and premeditated design to kill or incapable of judging his acts and their consequences, may properly influence a finding by the trial court that no specific intent to kill existed, and hence to conclude the killing was murder in the second degree.” [Emphasis in original.] Commonwealth v. Tarver, supra 446 Pa. at 239, 284 A.2d at 762. As the Tarver Court recognized, this exception to the general rule does not change the nature of the crime. Murder still remains murder. Only the degree of the crime has been affected. Because there exist no analogous degrees of robbery (and instantly burglary), the Tarver Court refused to extend this exception beyond the homicide area. To hold otherwise, and allow evidence of voluntary intoxication to negate the necessary specific intent required of both robbery •and burglary, would permit an individual’s voluntary intoxication to serve as a complete exoneration for all criminal acts committed while in that state. This cannot be tolerated.
The majority, while paying lip-service to the fundamental rule that voluntary intoxication is no defense to an individual’s criminal acts, nevertheless sanctions such a defense. In ruling that evidence of voluntary intoxication can be offered for the purpose of negating the presence of the required specific intent in both robbery and burglary, the majority has, without good reason, discarded the traditional rule. It matters little that the ma*130jority regards such evidence as only bearing upon an element of the crime, the specific intent of the perpetrator, rather than serving as a defense to such crime. The end result is the same and no amount of legal jargon will make it otherwise. If a criminal defendant, charged with either robbery or burglary, is found by the jury, because of voluntary intoxication, not to have had the requisite specific intent, he must be found not guilty. Only a person blind to reality could fail to perceive that there is no practical difference between the admission of evidence to negate an element of the crime and the admission of evidence to constitute a defense. The end result is that human life and property would hardly be considered any longer as being under legal protection. An individual will, henceforth, be permitted to avail himself of his voluntary intoxication to exempt him from any legal responsibility which would attach to him, if sober. As one noted annotator said in speaking of voluntary intoxication as a defense to criminal responsibility, “. all that the crafty criminal would require for a well-planned . . . [robbery or burglary] would be a revolver in one hand to commit the deed, and a quart of intoxicating liquor in the other . . ..” 8 A.L.R.3d 1236, 1245 (1966). See also Commonwealth v. Ingram, supra 440 Pa. at 247, 270 A.2d at 194.
Today, all too many murderers, robbers, burglars, rapists and other felons escape the imposition of justice for unsound and unrealistic reasons. The present ruling of this Court widens that avenue of escape.
I emphatically dissent.
JONES, C. J., and O’BRIEN, J., join in this dissenting opinion.