Court Opinion

ID: 9728334
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:05:17.49026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:47.669489
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring in result.
I respectfully concur only in the result of the majority opinion. I continue to believe that the legislative restriction upon the availability of the defense of intoxication in Ind.Code § 85-41-8-5, namely that it is a defense only to crimes defined by statute by use of the phrase "with intent to" or "with an intention to," is clear, constitutional, and should be enforced as was done in the court below by an instruction to the jury. Cf. Terry v. State (1984), Ind., 465 N.E.2d 1085 (DeBruler, J., concurring in result with opinion). The common factual makeup of a homicide includes as in this case the shooting or stabbing of one person by another. -It is within the reality of such conduct and events that the statutory restriction makes sense. It means that intoxication, no matter how great, does not rob a person engaged in such conduct of the capacity for doing so "intentionally" or "knowingly." - Ind.Code § 85-41-2-2.
1 would hold that once the trial judge decided that evidence of appellant's drinking or intoxication was material to the issues in the case, the instruction that voluntary intoxication is not a defense to the crime of murder was required by reason of the statute and its clear prohibition against the application of that defense in a murder case.