intoxication Flashcards
what is intoxication?
This covers any drugs, alcohol or other substances, e.g sniffing glue.
The defendant must be so intoxicated that they are incapable of forming the MR of the offence.
This defence is mainly policy based- this means that the defence is there to protect the public from the many crimes that are committed due to intoxication
Intoxication is a major factor in the commission of many crimes. Over half of violent crimes are committed by people who are intoxicated.
There is a need to balance the rights of the defendant and the victim. If intoxication was always a defence the rights of the victim would not be protected.
what did the The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 say about intoxication
The defendant cannot rely on ‘any mistaken belief attributable to intoxication that was voluntarily induced.
Whether the defendant is guilty or not depends on:
Whether the intoxication was voluntary or involuntary, and
Whether the offence charged is one of specific or basic intent
The defendant must not be able to form the MR of the offence.
what does voluntary intoxication mean for a specific intent crime?
If the defendant is intoxicated they may not be able to form the MR. - DPP v Birkenhead
R v Sheeran and Moore (1975)- did the defendant form the intent?
This can lead to a charge of a specific intent but the jury may decide on a basic intent alternative.
basic intent is not available because becoming that drunk is reckless as seen in DPP v Majewski
R v Sheehan and Moore (1975)
The defendants, in a drunken state, poured petrol over a homeless man and set light to it, causing his death. It was decided that the relevant question was not whether the defendants were capable of forming the mens rea, it was whether they had in fact formed the mens rea - a drunken intent is still an intent.
It is for the prosecution to prove that the defendant had the intent. In this case, they were unable to do so and the defendants were convicted of unlawful act manslaughter.
R v Lipman (1970)
D and his girlfriend took LSD. While they were on a ‘trip’ D stuffed a sheet down her throat as he thought he was fighting a snake and going to the centre of the earth.
He was charged with his girlfriend’s murder and with unlawful act manslaughter. He was acquitted of murder as he was unable to form mens rea of the offence.
However, he was convicted of manslaughter as that is a basic intent offence to which voluntary intoxication is no defence.
AG for Northern Ireland v Gallagher (1963)
D decided to kill his wife. He bought a knife to do the killing and also a bottle of whisky. He drank a large amount of the whisky to give himself ‘Dutch courage’ before killing his wife. His conviction for murder was upheld as he had formed the intent to kill before he became intoxicated. This case shows the defendants prior fault being punished - in other words, he made up his mind to kill before, allegedly, becoming so drunk that he killed while having no mens rea.
principle: When the defendant has the necessary mens rea despite his intoxicated state, then he/she is still guilty. Drunken intent is still intent
DPP v Majewski (1977)
D had consumed large quantities of alcohol and drugs and then attacked the landlord of the public house where he was drinking. The landlord called the police and D also attacked the police officers who tried to arrest him. D also damaged the pub and the police station where he was taken. All the offences he was charged with were basic intent offences. D claimed that he had no memory of what he had done due to the drink and drugs he had consumed. The Law Lords held that becoming intoxicated by drink and/or drugs was a reckless course of conduct, and recklessness was enough to constitute the necessary mens rea in the offences with which he was charged, so he could not use the defence of intoxication.
R v Allen (1988)
D drank some home made wine which had a much greater influence on him than expected.
Whilst under the influence of the wine he committed sexual assault. He claimed he was so drunk that he did not know what he was doing and that he had not voluntarily put himself in that condition as the wine was much stronger than he realised.
It was decided that his intoxication was still voluntary, even though he had not realised the strength of it. However, sexual assault is a crime of basic intent and therefor D was unable to rely on his intoxicated state to negate the mens rea.
involuntary toxication:
This covers situations in which the D didn’t know they were taking an intoxicating substance. Intoxicated through no fault of their own.
E.g. spiking, laced drinks.
E.g. prescription drugs that have an unexpected effect.
D can argue that that they did not form the MR (specific or basic intent)
If the D did form the MR then they are guilty, even if they would not have formed the MR if they were not intoxicated.
R v Kingston (1994)
R v Kingston (1994) D was invited to a house where his drink was drugged by a man who wanted to blackmail him. He was then shown a 15-year-old boy who was drugged and asleep in the room and D was invited to abuse him. D, who had pedophilic tendencies, did so and was photographed by the blackmailer.
The House of Lords upheld his conviction for indecent assault. They decided that if a defendant had formed the mens rea for an offence before becoming intoxicated then involuntary intoxication could not be a defence.
Legal principle: This decision ignores the fact that the D was not to blame for his intoxication.
This means he is unable to form mens rea and should be not guilty.
R v O’Grady (1987)
After D and V, who were friends, had been drinking heavily, they fell asleep in D’s flat. D claimed that he awoke to find V hitting him. D picked up a glass ashtray and hit V with it, and then went back to sleep.
When he woke the next morning, he found that V was dead. D was charged with murder and manslaughter and pleaded self-defence. When D was found guilty of manslaughter after mistakenly using excessive force against his friend, the mistaken belief was not allowed to be used for self-defence and he was convicted of manslaughter. The Court of Appeal upheld this conviction saying that a defendant is not entitled to rely, so far as self-defence is concerned, upon a mistake of fact which has been induced by voluntary intoxication.
Lord Lane CJ said
“There are two competing interests. On the one hand the interest of the defendant who has only acted according to what he believed to be necessary to protect himself, and on the other hand that of the public in general and the victim in particular who, probably through no fault of his own, has been injured or perhaps killed because of the defendant’s drunken mistake. Reason recoils from the conclusion that in such circumstances a defendant is entitled to leave the Court without a stain on his character”
legal principle: O’Grady was convicted of manslaughter- a basic intent crime. This follows Majewski as getting drunk is reckless conduct.
R v Hatton (2005)
D had drunk over 20 pints of beer. He and another man (V) went back to D’s flat. In the morning D claimed he found V dead from injuries caused by a sledgehammer.
D said he could not really remember what had happened but thought V had hit him with a five-foot-long stick and he had defended himself. D was convicted of murder.
The Court of Appeal held that the decision in O’Grady (1987) was not limited to basic intent offences, but also applied to specific intent offences. A drunken mistake about the amount of force required in self-defence was not a defence.
legal principle: This confirmed Lord Lanes comments that an intoxicated mistake as to the amount of force needed was not a defence
What does the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 say about a mistaken belief due to voluntary intoxication?
Statutory guidance that a mistaken belief caused through voluntary intoxication cannot give a defence of self-defence.
S76 states that reasonable force can be used for self-defence however, s76(5) states that this ‘does not enable the defendant to rely on any mistaken belief attributable to intoxication that was voluntarily induced’.
The exception to the rule is for criminal damage and was applied in Jaggard v Dickinson (1980). S5 of the criminal damage act allows an honest belief that the person to whom property belonged would have consented to the damage or destruction.
Jaggard v Dickinson (1980)
D, who was drunk, went to what she thought was a friend’s house. There was no one in and so she broke a window to get in as she believed (accurately) her friend would consent to this. Unfortunately, in her drunken state she had mistaken the house and had actually broken into the house of another person. She was charged with criminal damage.
The Divisional Court quashed her conviction holding that she could rely on her intoxicated belief as Parliament had ‘specifically required the court to consider the defendant’s actual state of belief, not the state of belief which ought to have existed’.
