Court Opinion

ID: 9644073
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:47:48.764169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:08.390665
License: Public Domain

O’CONNOR, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The instruction on voluntary intoxication was not justified by the evidence, is not permitted by the law, and prejudiced the appellant's defense of insanity by impermissibly adding to the appellant’s burden of proof.
The question we address is: When and in what circumstances may evidence of use of a minimal amount of intoxicant (not intoxication itself) by a person who is insane, be sufficient to instruct the jury on temporary insanity?
At the State’s request and over the appellant’s objections, the trial court instructed the jury that voluntary intoxication was not a defense and defined intoxication as a disturbance of mental and physical capacity resulting from the introduction of any substance into the body. The jury had three options in response to the jury charge: not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity, and guilty. Because the appellant did not contest the evidence that she killed her daughter, the jury actually had only two options: not guilty by reason of insanity and guilty. The instruction on voluntary intoxication and the definition of intoxication skewed the burden of proof on the issue of insanity, so that the appellant was required to prove she did not cause her own insanity.
The appellant is a paranoid schizophrenic.1 . To illustrate her confused condition *475around the time she killed her child, I summarize some of the evidence of her condition: Just before killing her child, the appellant said she was going to the other side of the moon, she was “the chosen one;” and she heard a song that said “go for the throat”; while she was stabbing her child, the appellant looked to her infant son for confirmation that what she was doing was required by “the force,” and when she saw that he did not cry, she knew she was doing the right thing; the appellant said she was compelled to kill her daughter because her eyes were black; just before arriving home that night, she saw a vacant lot, which scared her, and she told her daughter she was going to kill her; a few weeks before the killing, the appellant noticed strange and significant things began to happen around her house — the neighbor’s dog killed her puppy, the pepper plants grew “twisty,” the chickens quit laying eggs, and the hibiscus bloomed — which gave her a scary feeling; a few months before the killing, the appellant said one of her professors talked about her on the radio and television, sent her messages through advertisements on the radio, and could read her mind; the appellant told her former husband that the professor was trying to drive her crazy; the appellant’s mother knew something was wrong and had investigated the possibility of having her daughter committed; after the killing, the appellant said “God” had used her, she had not wanted to let God down, and the whole thing was a trick of the devil.
No evidence of intoxication
The main issue in this appeal is the propriety of instructing the jury that voluntary intoxication is not a defense to the commission of a crime when the State acknowledges the appellant was not intoxicated. The State admits the appellant is a paranoid schizophrenic who was in a psychotic episode at the time she killed her child. The State also admits the appellant was not intoxicated at the time she killed her child. The State’s position on the instruction is that the appellant aggravated her condition by taking a couple of hits of marihuana. The most obvious problem with the State’s position is that no statute permits the instruction on voluntary intoxication when the drug merely aggravated a defendant’s mental illness, but did not intoxicate her.
In its brief, the State argues the marihuana caused the appellant to have a “psychotic breakdown,” and the appellant’s psychotic episode was triggered by the marihuana. That is not supported by the evidence. Both experts testified in their opinion, the appellant had been in a psychotic episode for about three weeks before the killing. Both agreed marihuana can trigger a psychotic event, but the appellant was already in psychosis. The State’s expert testified the marihuana merely loosened the appellant’s control of her temper.
Section 8.04 of the Texas Penal Code defines intoxication as the “disturbance of mental or physical capacity resulting from the introduction of any substance into the body.” Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 8.04 (Vernon 1974). The intoxicant in this case— two puffs on a marihuana cigarette — did not produce intoxication; by the testimony of the State’s own expert, the marihuana merely loosened the appellant’s temper.2 Thus, it was error to give the instruction on voluntary intoxication.
The majority relies on two of the eases permitting the instruction on voluntary intoxication over the defendants’ objections, Jaynes v. State, 673 S.W.2d 198, 200 (Tex.Crim.App.1984), and Williams v. State, 567 S.W.2d 507, 508 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1978). In both cases, the defendant claimed to be intoxicated and did not remember having committed the act resulting in the indictment. In Jaynes, the defen*476dant, intoxicated on alcohol and drugs, drove her vehicle into another, injuring a person standing nearby. Jaynes, 673 S.W.2d at 199. The defendant, who was charged with failing to stop and render aid, testified she remembered nothing about the accident; the last thing she remembered was driving around with a friend. Id. at 200. In Williams, the defendant went on a drinking spree, imbibing a combination of beer and whiskey, and at 10:30 a.m., he shot at a number of people. Later, when he sobered up, he voluntarily went to the police station where he was told about the shootings. Williams, 567 S.W.2d at 508.
Neither Jaynes nor Williams is relevant to the present case. Here, the appellant, who remembered killing her child, was not intoxicated. The appellant testified she had two puffs of a marihuana cigarette somewhere between one to three hours before she killed her child.3 Five people saw the appellant after she killed her child: the three police officers, the justice of the peace, and her common-law husband. None said she appeared to be intoxicated. Further, the chemist from the Brazoria County Crime Lab testified no drugs were detected in the blood sample taken from the appellant at the time of her arrest.
In cases where the issue of intoxication is present, before the trial court is authorized to give the instruction on voluntary intoxication, there must be proof of two things: (1) the defendant must have used a significant amount of the intoxicant; and (2) the defendant must have appeared intoxicated. In the following cases, the trial court refused to give the instruction on voluntary intoxication because there was no evidence the defendant appeared intoxicated. In Nethery v. State, 692 S.W.2d 686, 711 (Tex.Crim.App.1985), even though the defendant drank three “kamikaze” drinks and shared a marihuana cigarette before the shooting, the defendant did not appear to be intoxicated. In Still v. State, 709 S.W.2d 658, 659, 661 (Tex.Crim.App.1986), even though the defendant drank about a case of beer and some whisky during the afternoon, he did not appear to be intoxicated, because he could describe his awareness and the events leading up to the shooting. In Schenck v. State, 624 S.W.2d 757, 758 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1981, no pet.), even though the defendant was under the influence of drugs (Valium and Etrifon) and alcohol (two six-packs of beer), the defendant was not entitled to the instruction, because he did not attribute his anger to the intoxication.
In this case, the instruction on voluntary intoxication unfairly shifted the burden to the appellant and prejudiced her defense of insanity. The State had the burden to prove murder, which the appellant did not contest. The appellant had the burden to prove she was insane, which she was required to prove by the preponderance of the evidence. When the State introduced evidence that she had two puffs of a marihuana cigarette, coupled with the instruction that intoxication is no defense, it shifted the burden to the appellant to prove the marihuana did not cause her mental condition.4
The appellant should be given a fair opportunity to present her defense of insanity, without having to disprove the implication that she is responsible for her mental condition by voluntary action. I would reverse and remand for retrial because of error in the charge.

. Whether the appellant’s condition is a "severe mental disease or defect" such that she “did not know that [her] conduct was wrong” when she killed her child, and thus is relieved of criminal liability for the death of her child, is the issue *475that the jury, properly charged, must decide. TexPenal Code Ann. § 8.01 (Vernon Supp.1993).

. The marihuana was merely one of the events that may have precipitated the appellant's action. As a paranoid schizophrenic who was in a psychotic state, almost anything could have set her off — the vacant lot they passed, which scared her, after which she told her daughter she was going to kill her; the "twisty” pepper plants, the chickens that refused to lay eggs, or the blooming hibiscus.

. The appellant shared a marihuana cigarette with her common-law husband sometime between 5:15 p.m. and 7:35 p.m., as she drove from Houston to Rosharon with him. The appellant killed her child about 8:15 p.m.

. In most cases involving the use of an intoxicant, when a defendant attempts to prove she is not responsible for the crime because she did not have the proper culpable mental state, the defendant is attempting to prove the intoxicant changed her normal mental condition. Here, because of the charge on voluntary intoxication, the defendant was required to prove her defense of insanity and also prove that the intoxicant did not change her normal insane condition.