Voluntary Intoxication: A Defense to Specific Intent Crimes
![handle is hein.journals/udetmr65 and id is 43 raw text is: Voluntary Intoxication: A Defense to
Specific Intent Crimes
MATTHEW J. BOETrCHER*
I. INTRODUCTION
It is by now hornbook law that voluntary intoxication of any
degree affords the accused no excuse for crime.' This rule is
founded on the belief that one who voluntarily places himself in a
condition of intoxication must be held to intend any consequences
of that incapacity.' Adherance to this rule, however, does not fore-
close inquiry into the mental state of the accused in a criminal pros-
ecution because the state must prove the requisite criminal intent
beyond a reasonable doubt. Consequently, while voluntary intoxi-
cation will not excuse criminal conduct, it may be relevant as to
whether the defendant possessed the intent necessary to convict.3
* B.S., University of Detroit, 1984; J.D., University of Detroit School of Law,
1987. I wish to thank Professor Alan Saltzman and Thomas J. Dyszewski for their
thoughtful comments. I would also like to express my gratitude to the members of
the University of Detroit Law Review who were instrumental in the preparation of
this article for publication.
1. See People v. Savoie, 419 Mich. 118, 349 N.W.2d 139 (1984); People v.
Crittle, 390 Mich. 367, 212 N.W.2d 196 (1973); People v. Garbutt, 17 Mich. 9
(1868). See also generally Annotation, Modern Status of the Rules as to Voluntary Intoxica-
tion as a Defense to Criminal Charge, 8 A.L.R.3d 1236 (1966); W. LAFAVE & A. Scorr,
JR., CRIMINAL LAw § 45 (1972) [hereinafter LAFAvE & Scorr].
2. Garbutt, 17 Mich. at 19. In Garbutt, the defendant was convicted of first
degree murder. Id. at 10. At trial, Garbutt claimed that he was incompetent to
entertain the requisite intent for the crime of murder due to his intoxication. Id. at
14. Defense counsel requested the trial court charge the jury that if they believed
the defendant was intoxicated to such an extent as to make him unconscious of
what he was doing at the time of the commission of the offense, the defendant must
be acquitted. Id. at 18-19. Rejecting the propriety of an intoxication defense, the
court stated:
A doctrine like this would be a most alarming one to admit in the
criminal jurisprudence of the country, and we think the recorder was right
in rejecting it. A man who voluntarily puts himself in a condition to have
no control of his actions, must be held to intend the consequences. The
safety of the community requires this rule. Intoxication is so easily coun-
terfeited, and when real it is so often resorted to as a means of nerving the
person up to the commission of some desperate act, and is with also inex-
cusable in itself, that the law has never recognized it as an excuse for
crime.
Id. at 19 (citations omitted).
3. In Roberts v. People, 19 Mich. 401 (1870), the Michigan Supreme Court
first distinguished the utility of intoxication as a defense to specific criminal intent
from its use as a complete defense as was argued in Garbutt. The court stated, In
determining the question whether the assault was committed with the intent
charged, it was therefore material to inquire whether the defendant's mental facul-](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/udetmr65&div=9&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Voluntary Intoxication: A Defense to Specific Intent Crimes
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