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Criminal Law - Defence - Intoxication
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- 1EFFECT OF INTOXICATIONSheehan and More [1975] 1 WLR 739: ‘In cases where drunkenness and its possible effect on the defendant’s mens rea is an issue, we think the proper direction to a jury is, first to warn them that the mere fact that the defendant’s mind was affected by drink so that he acted in a way in which he would not have done had he been sober does not assist him at all, provided the necessary intention was there. A drunken intent is nevertheless intent.’
Gallagher [1963] AC 349: ‘If a man, whilst sane and sober, forms an intention to kill and makes preparation for it, knowing it is a wrong thing to do, and then gets himself drunk so as to give himself Dutch courage to do the killing, and whilst drunk carries out his intention, he cannot rely on this self-induced drunkenness as a defence to a charge of murder, nor even as reducing it to manslaughter. He cannot say that he got himself into such a stupid state that he was incapable of an intent to kill.’ - 2VOLUNTARY INTOXICATIONThis is where the defendant is affected by the voluntary consumption of alcohol or some other drug.
Glanville Williams (1983) – ‘it would be inimical to the safety of all of us if the judges announced that anyone could gain exemption from the criminal law by getting drunk.’ - 3Intoxication and Specific/Basic Intent CrimesSpecific intent: Includes murder, theft, burglary with intent, robbery, handling.
Basic intent: Includes manslaughter, assault, unlawful wounding, criminal damage. - 4VOLUNTARY INTOXICATION - Specific IntentLaw Commission, Intoxication and Criminal Liability (2009) [1.17]: ‘Voluntary intoxication prevents proof of criminal liability only if the subjective fault required by the definition of the offence is a particular type, that is, it is one of the culpable states of mind labelled by the courts (confusingly) as specific intent’.
Beard [1920] AC 479: ‘when a specific intent is an essential element of the offence, evidence of a state of drunkenness rendering the accused incapable of forming such an intent should be taken into consideration in order to determine whether he had in fact formed the intent necessary to constitute the particular crime... in a charge of murder based on intent to kill or do GBH, if the jury are satisfied that the accuses was, by reason of his drunken condition, incapable of forming the intent... he cannot be convicted of murder. But nevertheless homicide has been committed by the accused... and that is manslaughter.’
Now not just incapable of forming intent but D didn’t in fact form the intent. - 5VOLUNTARY INTOXICATION - Basic IntentMajewski [1977] AC 443: ‘Judges...before and since Beard’s case... have taken the view that self-induced intoxication, however gross and even if it has produced a condition akin to automatism, cannot excuse crimes of basic intent’.
Heard [2007] EWCA Crim 125:
‘There were ... many difficulties in the proposition that voluntary intoxication actually supplies the mens rea, whether on the basis of recklessness as re-defined in Caldwell or on the basis of recklessness as now understood; if that were so the drunken man might be guilty simply by becoming drunk and whether or not the risk would be obvious to a sober person, himself or anyone else.’
Note also the view of the Law Commission that Lord Elwyn-Jones' dicta “cannot be an accurate explanation” of the law: Law Commission, Intoxication and Criminal Liability (2009) para.2.25 - 6INVOLUNTARY INTOXICATIONWhen is it involuntary?
Allen [1988] Crim LR 698 CA - Where the defendant knew that he was drinking alcohol, the drinking of it did not become involuntary merely because he did not know the precise nature or strength of the alcohol.
Involuntary intoxication may act as a defence to any crime but only if intoxication prevents D from forming the necessary mens rea.
Kingston [1994] 3 All ER 353 – if D has the necessary mens rea for an offence that he or she would only commit because he was involuntarily intoxicated, no defence – a drugged intent is still an intent if the intention exists.
Bailey [1983]
Hardie [1984]
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- (Criminal Law) Law Fichas sobre Criminal Law - Defence - Intoxication, creado por thierry fasnacht el 22/04/2018.
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