New Jersey Intoxication Defense to criminal charges

New Jersey Intoxication Defense to criminal charges

New Jersey Intoxication defense is a defense to crimes requiring either “purposeful” or “knowing” mental states.

The state has the burden of disproving this defense beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Self-induced intoxication is not a defense, unless it negates an element of the offense. 

Self-induced intoxication is not a defense to offenses, which only require proof of a culpability - responsibility - of either negligence, recklessness, or recklessness manifesting extreme human indifference to human life. 

Hence, evidence of intoxication is admissible as a defense to murder to disprove that a defendant acted purposely or knowingly but not as a defense to aggravated manslaughter, nor manslaughter to show that he was unaware of a risk of which he should have been aware had he been sober. 

Intoxication should not be charged as a defense unless there is reliable evidence that the defendant ingested drugs or alcohol and there was an incapacitation of judgment due to such substances. 

Some of the factors which are important in determining whether the intoxication may have sufficient grounds to be raised as a defense is the quantity consumed, period of time involved, actor’s conduct perceived by others, any odor of alcohol or other intoxicating substance, the results of any test to determine blood alcohol content and the actor’s ability to recall significant events. 

The jury must determine whether the intoxication prevented the defendant from acting knowingly or purposely.

Intoxication, which is not self, induced is an affirmative defense, which the defendant has the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence. 

If a defendant voluntarily ingests a large amount of illegal intoxicants or legal intoxicants, he cannot assert the defense that he unexpectedly reacted violently to those drugs due to an unknown underlying pathological condition. 

  The NJ Supreme examined the intoxication defense in State v. Baum(A-107-13) (073056)

Argued November 10, 2015 Decided February 8, 2016

SOLOMON, J., writing for a unanimous Court.

In this appeal arising from a prosecution for aggravated manslaughter and death by auto, the Court considers the trial court s jury instructions, and whether the instruction on mental disease or defect effectively negated defendant s diminished capacity defense by blending the law on self-induced intoxication and mental disease or defect.

While driving from his residence to his mother s home on the night of April 20, 2006, defendant Eugene Baum struck and killed two teenage girls who were walking in a bike lane of a major thoroughfare in Kinnelon. The responding officers found two beverage containers in defendant s car, one of which contained a liquid that was 7.7 percent ethyl alcohol (15 proof). Defendant could not maintain his balance, his speech was slurred, and he smelled strongly of alcohol. He told the police that he thought he had hit a deer, but was not sure.

At the time of the incident, defendant s blood alcohol level was determined to be between .327 and .377, four times the legal limit. Defendant had taken a prescribed anti-depressant the night before, and Librium that morning to control his symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Although he knew that Librium would intensify his intoxication, defendant stated that he consumed more than two alcoholic beverages, but did not know how much he actually consumed, before driving to his mother s home. Defendant stated that he drank because he is an alcoholic, and has struggled with alcoholism for approximately seven years.

Defendant argued at trial that he lacked the mental capacity to act recklessly because of his intoxication, which he claimed was involuntary due to his mental diseases or defects of alcoholism and depression. Defendant presented expert testimony confirming his chronic alcoholism, and concluding that the Librium in his system severely impaired his ability to think or reason and that his drinking was automatic behavior rather than the product of conscious thought. The State s expert testified that alcohol consumption is a conscious, goal-directed behavior. At the charge conference, defense counsel argued that it would be improper for the court to characterize defendant s intoxication as self-induced because the net effect of that statement would be to negate diminished capacity. Counsel requested that the court separately and distinctly outline for the jury the concepts of self-induced intoxication and diminished capacity. The trial judge stated that he would give the self-induced intoxication charge following the mental disease or defect instruction, and defense counsel did not object.

The jury found defendant guilty of two counts of first-degree aggravated manslaughter and two counts of second-degree death by auto. Defendant was sentenced to two consecutive twenty-year prison terms subject to eighty-five percent parole ineligibility. The Appellate Division affirmed defendant s conviction, but remanded for resentencing based on a reevaluation of the aggravating factors relied on by the sentencing court. The panel found that the court s instruction regarding mental disease or defect properly incorporated the exculpatory significance of defendant s expert testimony on the relationship between defendant s intoxication and mental disease. This Court granted limited certification. 220 N.J. 37 (2014).

HELD: The jury instructions, taken as a whole, are neither ambiguous nor misleading because they did not blend, and explicitly distinguished, the concepts of mental disease or defect and self-induced intoxication, in charges that reflected an accurate statement of the law. The sequence of instructions given by the court, addressing the diminished capacity defense followed by the self-induced intoxication instruction, did not negate the diminished capacity defense.

1. Appropriate and proper charges are essential for a fair trial. The trial court must give a comprehensible explanation of the questions that the jury must determine, including the law of the case applicable to the facts that the jury may find. Erroneous instructions on material points are presumed to possess the capacity to unfairly prejudice the defendant. Because defendant objected to the proposed diminished capacity instruction, the Court applies a harmless error standard. The Court must therefore determine whether the charge as a whole sets forth accurately and fairly the controlling principles of law, or whether it is misleading, and, if so, whether this error was clearly capable of producing an unjust result. (pp. 12-14)

2. The Criminal Code allows evidence of a mental disease or defect to negate an essential mental element of the crime, and is therefore relevant to the State s burden in proving the offenses charged. A diminished capacity defense requires evidence demonstrating: a) a mental disease or defect that interferes with cognitive ability sufficient to prevent or interfere with the formation of the requisite intent or mens rea; and b) that the claimed deficiency did affect defendant s cognitive capacity to form the requisite mental state. Whether a condition constitutes a mental disease or defect is a question for determination by the jury after the court finds that the evidence of the condition in question is relevant and accepted in the psychiatric community so as to be reliable for use in litigation. (pp. 14-16)

3. Evidence of intoxication may be used to disprove that a defendant acted purposely or knowingly. However, voluntary or self-induced intoxication, defined in N.J.S.A. 2C:2-8(e)(2), is immaterial to recklessness as an element of an offense. (pp. 16-17)

4. Defendant s state of mind was at issue in light of the requirement that the State show recklessness on the charge of aggravated manslaughter under N.J.S.A. 2C:11-4(a)(1), and knowing and voluntary conduct under the death by auto charge. Defendant contended that he could not have had the requisite mental state because he was involuntarily intoxicated due to the mental diseases or defects of alcoholism and depression. Defendant asserted that his intoxication should have been considered as evidence of his mental diseases or defects to establish a diminished capacity defense. The State argued that defendant s intoxication and driving on the shoulder of the road was evidence of defendant s recklessness in causing the victims deaths. (pp. 18-19)

5. The Court finds no error in the jury charge. The trial court s instruction on self-induced intoxication mirrored the definition in N.J.S.A. 2C:2-8(e)(2), which includes the language regarding a knowing introduction of intoxicants that defendant sought. The trial court further stated that defendant had offered evidence that his intoxication was not self-induced and that his alleged use of the intoxicants was not voluntary; as a result, the court also provided the jury with the definition of a voluntary act. The court s diminished capacity charge was consistent with the Model Jury Charge. The trial court s caveat regarding self-induced intoxication, included in the diminished capacity defense charge, did not improperly blend the law of self-induced intoxication with that of mental disease or defect. These instructions, and the twice-stated distinction between the statutory definition of self-induced intoxication and defendant s denial of self-induced intoxication, were proper to allow the jury to determine the issues. (pp. 19-24)

6. The Court also rejects defendant s claim that giving the self-induced intoxication instruction immediately after the mental disease or defect instruction effectively negated his diminished capacity defense. By carefully constructing the intoxication charge to accommodate defendant s requests, the trial judge properly conveyed the concept that if defendant s intoxication was due to a mental disease or defect that deprived him of the ability to knowingly introduce intoxicants into his body, this will negate a necessary element of the offenses. In light of the content of the charge as a whole, the sequence of instructions was not clearly capable of producing an unjust result. (pp. 24-26)

The judgment of the Appellate Division is AFFIRMED.

CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER and JUSTICES LaVECCHIA, ALBIN and PATTERSON join in JUSTICE SOLOMON S opinion. JUSTICE FERNANDEZ-VINA and JUDGE CUFF (temporarily assigned) did not participate.

SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY

A- 107 September Term 2013