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In criminal law, the intoxication defense is a defense by which a defendant may claim diminished responsibility on the basis of substance intoxication.Where a crime requires a certain mental state (mens rea) to break the law, those under the influence of an intoxicating substance may be considered to have reduced liability for their actions.
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 ...
Laws on drunkenness vary. In the United States, it is a criminal offense for a person to be drunk while driving a motorized vehicle, except in Wisconsin, where it is only a fine for the first offense. [38] It is also a criminal offense to fly an aircraft or (in some American states) to assemble or operate an amusement park ride while drunk. [39]
The House of Lords was mainly concerned with the extent to which self-induced drunkenness could be a defence to offences of specific intent and basic intent, the latter encompassing recklessness. The Lords ultimately ruled that self-induced intoxication could be a defence to specific intent, but not to basic intent, i.e. recklessness.
R v Tandy [7] held that where a defendant could show that she was suffering from an abnormality of the mind, that it was induced by disease (namely alcoholism), and that it substantially impaired her responsibility for her actions, then the defence of diminished responsibility would be made out. In the actual case, the craving for alcohol did ...
Strictly speaking, however, it could be argued that intoxication is not a defense, but a denial of mens rea; [10] the main difference being that a defense accepts the mens rea and actus reus of an offence are present. With intoxication, there is no acceptance of the mens rea of the offence. For offences of basic intent, the act itself is ...
A Polk County judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a woman who says she believed her boyfriend was going to attack her before she shot and killed him.
Settled insanity is defined as a permanent or "settled" condition caused by long-term substance abuse and differs from the temporary state of intoxication.In some United States jurisdictions, "settled insanity" can be used as a basis for an insanity defense, even though voluntary intoxication cannot, if the "settled insanity" negates one of the required elements of the crime such as malice ...