Criminal Responsibility and the Right to Treatment for Intoxication and Alcoholism
![handle is hein.journals/glj57 and id is 851 raw text is: CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE
RIGHT TO -TREATMENT FOR
INTOXICATION AND ALCOHOLISM
PETER BARTON HUTT* AND RICHARD A. MERRILL**
Concurring with Mr. Tao's judgment that any prosecution /or public
drunkenness should examine whether the particular dejfndant's conduct
was voluntary or involuntary, Messrs Hutt and Merrill maintain that the
Driver, Easter, and Powell decisions have adopted this approach and
have recognized alcoholism as a disease. Examining the relevant case law
and crime comnmission reports, the authors point out that the explicit
recognition of a right to treatment jbr alcoholics, as embodied in the
recently enacted District of Columbia and Maryland statutes, is a jar
inore ejfective solution to the problem oi alcoholism than nere
punishment.
In the past three years the law's approach to public drunkenness
has changed dramatically. In Driver v. Hinnant' and Easter v.
District of Columbid2 two federal courts of appeals, relying upon the
precept that a person may not be convicted of a crime for behavior he
could not control, overturned convictions of homeless, derelict
alcoholics for the offense of public drunkenness. The President's D.C.
and U.S. Crime Commissions both condemned the traditional
recognition of drunkenness as a crime and recommended substitution
of comprehensive public health programs for the treatment and
rehabilitation of alcoholics Recently, in Powell v. Texas, a case
*B.A., 1956, Yale University; LL.B., 1959, Harvard University; LL.M., 1960, New York
University.
**A.B., 1959, Columbia University; B.A., 1961, Oxford University; LL.B., 1964, Columbia
University.
The authors, members of the District of Columbia and New York Bars, practice with the
Washington, D.C., firm of Covington & Burling, were counsel for amici curiae in Driver v.
Hinnant, 356 F.2d 761 (4th Cir. 1966) and Powell v. Texas, 392 U.S. 514 (1968), and
represented DeWitt Easter in Easter v. District of Columbia, 124 U.S. App. D.C. 33, 361 F.2d
50 (1966) (en banc). In addition, they served as consultants and advisors to the President's
Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice and to the President's
Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia on matters relating to the handling of public
drunkenness, and participated in the development of legislation leading to the enactment of the
District of Columbia Alcoholic Rehabilitation Act of 1967, Pub. L. No. 90-452, 82 Stat. 618
(Aug. 3, 1968).
'356 F.2d 761 (4th Cir. 1966).
2124 U.S. App. D.C. 33, 361 F.2d 50 (1966) (en banc).
3PRESIDENT'S COMM'N ON LAW ENFORCEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE, TASK
FORCE REPORT: DRUNKENNESS 1-6 (1967) [hereinafter cited as TASK FORCE REPORT];
PRESIDENT'S COMM'N ON CRIME IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, REPORT 474-503 (1966)
[hereinafter cited as D.C. CRIME COMM'N REPORT].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/glj57&div=63&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Criminal Responsibility and the Right to Treatment for Intoxication and Alcoholism
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