OCTOBER TERM, 1995
Syllabus
MONTANA
v. EGELHOFF
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF MONTANA No. 95-566. Argued
March 20, 1996-Decided June 13, 1996
On trial for two counts of deliberate homicide-defined by
Montana law as "purposely" or "knowingly" causing another's
death-respondent claimed that extreme intoxication had rendered him
physically incapable of committing the murders and accounted for
his inability to recall the events of the night in question. After
being instructed, pursuant to Mont. Code Ann. § 45-2-203, that
respondent's "intoxicated condition" could not be considered "in
determining the existence of a mental state which is an element of
the offense," the jury found respondent guilty. In reversing, the
Supreme Court of Montana reasoned that respondent had a right,
under the Due Process Clause, to present and have the jury consider
"all relevant evidence" to rebut the State's evidence on all
elements of the offense charged, and that evidence of his voluntary
intoxication was "clearly relevant" to the issue whether he acted
knowingly and purposely. Because § 45-2-203 prevented the jury from
considering that evidence, the court concluded that the State had
been relieved of part of its burden of proof and that respondent
had therefore been denied due process.
Held: The judgment is reversed.
272 Mont. 114, 900 P. 2d 260, reversed.
JUSTICE SCALIA, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE KENNEDY,
and JUSTICE THOMAS, concluded that § 45-2-203 does not violate the
Due Process Clause. Pp.41-56.
(a) The State Supreme Court's proposition that the Due Process
Clause guarantees the right to introduce
all relevant
evidence is indefensible. See,
e. g.,
Taylor v.
Illinois, 484 U. S. 400, 410; Fed.
Rule Evid. 403; Fed. Rule Evid. 802. The Clause does place limits
upon restriction of the right to introduce evidence, but only where
the restriction "offends some principle of justice so rooted in the
traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as
fundamental." See
Patterson v.
New York,
432 U. S. 197,201-202.
Respondent has failed to meet the heavy burden of establishing that
a defendant's right to have a jury consider voluntary intoxication
evidence in determining whether he possesses the requisite mental
state is a "fundamental principle of justice." The primary guide in
making such a determination, historical practice, gives respondent
little support. It was firmly established at common law that a
defendant's voluntary intoxication provided neither an "excuse"
38
Syllabus
nor a "justification" for his crimes; the common law's stern
rejection of inebriation as a defense must be understood as also
precluding a defendant from arguing that, because of his
intoxication, he could not have possessed the
mens rea
necessary to commit the crime. The justifications for this
common-law rule persist to this day, and have only been
strengthened by modern research. Although a rule allowing a jury to
consider evidence of a defendant's voluntary intoxication where
relevant to
mens rea has gained considerable acceptance
since the 19th century, it is of too recent vintage, and has not
received sufficiently uniform and permanent allegiance to qualify
as fundamental, especially since it displaces a lengthy common-law
tradition which remains supported by valid justifications. Pp.
41-51.
(b) None of this Court's cases on which the Supreme Court of
Montana's conclusion purportedly rested undermines the principle
that a State can limit the introduction of relevant evidence for a
"valid" reason, as Montana has. The Due Process Clause does not bar
States from making changes in their criminal law that have the
effect of making it easier for the prosecution to obtain
convictions. See
McMillan v.
Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79, 89, n. 5.
Pp. 51-56.
JUSTICE GINSBURG concluded that § 45-2-203 should not be
categorized as simply an evidentiary rule. Rather, § 45-2-203
embodies a legislative judgment regarding the circumstances under
which individuals may be held criminally responsible for their
actions. The provision judges equally culpable a person who commits
an act stone sober, and one who engages in the same conduct after
voluntary intoxication has reduced the actor's capacity for
self-control. Comprehended as a measure redefining
mens rea,
§ 45-2-203 encounters no constitutional shoal. States have broad
authority to define the elements of criminal offenses in light of
evolving perceptions of the extent to which moral culpability
should be a prerequisite to conviction of a crime. Defining
mens
rea to eliminate the exculpatory value of voluntary
intoxication does not offend a fundamental principle of justice,
given the lengthy common-law tradition, and the adherence of a
significant minority of the States to that position today. Pp.
56-61.
SCALIA, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an
opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and KENNEDY and THOMAS, JJ.,
joined. GINSBURG, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment,
post, p. 56. O'CONNOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in
which STEVENS, SOUTER, and BREYER, JJ., joined,
post, p. 61.
SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion,
post, p. 73. BREYER,
J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, J., joined,
post, p. 79.
39
JosephP Afazurek, Attorney General of ]don tan a, argued
the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were
Pamela P
Collins, Assistant Attorney General,
Clay R. Smith, and
Carter G.
Phillips.
Afiguel A. Estrada argued the cause for the United States as
amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor
General Days, Acting Assistant Attorney General Keeney, Deputy
Solicitor General Dreeben, and Nina Goodman.
Ann C.
German argued the cause for respondent.
With her on the brief was
Amy N.
Guth. *
JUSTICE SCALIA announced the judgment of the Court and delivered
an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE KENNEDY, and
JUSTICE THOMAS join.
We consider in this case whether the Due Process Clause is
violated by ]dontana Code Annotated § 45-2-203, which provides, in
relevant part, that voluntary intoxication "may
*Briefs of
amici curiae urging reversal were filed for
the State of Hawaii et al. by
Margery S.
Bronster,
Attorney General of Hawaii, and
Steven S.
Michaels,
Deputy Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their
respective jurisdictions as follows:
Bruce M. Botelho of
Alaska,
Grant Woods of Arizona,
Winston Bryant of
Arkansas,
Gale A. Norton of Colorado,
M. Jane Brady
of Delaware,
Carla J. Stovall of Kansas,
Mike Moore of Mississippi,
Jeremiah W Nixon of
Missouri,
Don Stenberg of Nebraska,
Frankie Sue Del
Papa of Nevada,
Tom Udall of New Mexico,
Betty D.
Montgomery of Ohio,
W A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma,
Thomas W Corbett, Jr., of Pennsylvania,
Charles Molony
Condon of South Carolina,
Dan Morales of Texas,
Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia,
Malaetasi
Togafau of American Samoa, and
Richard Weil of the
Northern Mariana Islands; for the American Alliance for Rights and
Responsibilities et al. by
Philip Allen Lacovara and
Robert Teir; and for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
by
Kent S.
Scheidegger and
Charles
Diane Marie Amann and
Barbara E. Bergman filed a
brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as
amicus curiae urging affirmance.
40
Opinion of SCALIA, J.
not be taken into consideration in determining the existence of
a mental state which is an element of [a criminal] offense."
I
In July 1992, while camping out in the Yaak region of
northwestern Montana to pick mushrooms, respondent made friends
with Roberta Pavola and John Christenson, who were doing the same.
On Sunday, July 12, the three sold the mushrooms they had collected
and spent the rest of the day and evening drinking, in bars and at
a private party in Troy, Montana. Some time after 9 p.m., they left
the party in Christenson's 1974 Ford Galaxy station wagon. The
drinking binge apparently continued, as respondent was seen buying
beer at 9:20 p.m. and recalled "sitting on a hill or a bank passing
a bottle of Black Velvet back and forth" with Christenson. 272
Mont. 114, 118, 900 P. 2d 260, 262 (1995).
At about midnight that night, officers of the Lincoln County,
Montana, sheriff's department, responding to reports of a possible
drunk driver, discovered Christenson's station wagon stuck in a
ditch along U. S. Highway 2. In the front seat were Pavola and
Christenson, each dead from a single gunshot to the head. In the
rear of the car lay respondent, alive and yelling obscenities. His
blood-alcohol content measured .36 percent over one hour later. On
the floor of the car, near the brake pedal, lay respondent's
.38caliber handgun, with four loaded rounds and two empty casings;
respondent had gunshot residue on his hands.
Respondent was charged with two counts of deliberate homicide, a
crime defined by Montana law as "purposely" or "knowingly" causing
the death of another human being. Mont. Code Ann. §45-5-102 (1995).
A portion of the jury charge, uncontested here, instructed that
"[a] person acts purposely when it is his conscious object to
engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result," and
that "[a] person acts knowingly when he is aware of his conduct or
when he is aware under the circumstances his conduct consti-
41
tutes a crime; or, when he is aware there exists the high
probability that his conduct will cause a specific result." App. to
Pet. for Cert. 28a-29a. Respondent's defense at trial was that an
unidentified fourth person must have committed the murders; his own
extreme intoxication, he claimed, had rendered him physically
incapable of committing the murders, and accounted for his
inability to recall the events of the night of July 12. Although
respondent was allowed to make this use of the evidence that he was
intoxicated, the jury was instructed, pursuant to Mont. Code Ann. §
45-2-203 (1995), that it could not consider respondent's
"intoxicated condition ... in determining the existence of a mental
state which is an element of the offense." App. to Pet. for Cert.
29a. The jury found respondent guilty on both counts, and the court
sentenced him to 84 years' imprisonment.
The Supreme Court of Montana reversed. It reasoned (1) that
respondent "had a due process right to present and have considered
by the jury all relevant evidence to rebut the State's evidence on
all elements of the offense charged," 272 Mont., at 125, 900 P. 2d,
at 266, and (2) that evidence of respondent's voluntary
intoxication was "clear[ly] ... relevant to the issue of whether
[respondent] acted knowingly and purposely,"
id., at 122,
900 P. 2d, at 265. Because § 45-2-203 prevented the jury from
considering that evidence with regard to that issue, the court
concluded that the State had been "relieved of part of its burden
to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every fact necessary to
constitute the crime charged,"
id., at 124, 900 P. 2d, at
266, and that respondent had therefore been denied due process. We
granted certiorari. 516 U. S. 1021 (1995).
II
The cornerstone of the Montana Supreme Court's judgment was the
proposition that the Due Process Clause guarantees a defendant the
right to present and have considered
42
Opinion of SCALIA, J.
by the jury
"all relevant evidence to rebut the State's
evidence on all elements of the offense charged." 272 Mont., at
125, 900 P. 2d, at 266 (emphasis added). Respondent does not defend
this categorical rule; he acknowledges that the right to present
relevant evidence "has not been viewed as absolute." Brief for
Respondent 31. That is a wise concession, since the proposition
that the Due Process Clause guarantees the right to introduce all
relevant evidence is simply indefensible. As we have said: "The
accused does not have an unfettered right to offer [evidence] that
is incompetent, privileged, or otherwise inadmissible under
standard rules of evidence."
Taylor v.
Illinois,
484 U. S. 400,
410 (1988). Relevant evidence may, for example, be excluded on
account of a defendant's failure to comply with procedural
requirements. See
Michigan v.
Lucas, 500 U. S. 145, 151
(1991). And any number of familiar and unquestionably
constitutional evidentiary rules also authorize the exclusion of
relevant evidence. For example, Federal (and Montana) Rule of
Evidence 403 provides:
"Although relevant, evidence may be
excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the
danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading
the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or
needless presentation of cumulative evidence." (Emphasis added.)
Hearsay rules, see Fed. Rule Evid. 802, similarly prohibit the
introduction of testimony which, though unquestionably relevant, is
deemed insufficiently reliable.1 Of course, to say that the right
to intro-
IJUSTICE O'CONNOR agrees that "a defendant does not enjoy an
absolute right to present evidence relevant to his defense,"
post, at 62, and does not dispute the validity of the
evidentiary rules mentioned above. She contends, however, that
Montana's Rule is not like these because it "places a blanket
exclusion on a
category of evidence that would allow the
accused to negate the offense's mental-state element."
Ibid.
(emphasis added). Of course hearsay is a "category" of evidence as
well; what JUSTICE O'CONNOR apparently has in mind is that this
particular category relates to evidence tending to prove a
particular fact. That is indeed a distinction, but it is hard to
understand why it should make
43
duce relevant evidence is not absolute is not to say that the
Due Process Clause places
no limits upon restriction of that
right. But it is to say that the defendant asserting such a limit
must sustain the usual heavy burden that a due process claim
entails:
"[P]reventing and dealing with crime is much more the business
of the States than it is of the Federal Government, and ... we
should not lightly construe the Constitution so as to intrude upon
the administration of justice by the individual States. Among other
things, it is normally 'within the power of the State to regulate
procedures under which its laws are carried out,' ... and its
decision in this regard is not subject to proscription under the
Due Process Clause unless 'it offends some principle of justice so
rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be
ranked as fundamental.'" Patterson v. New York,
432 U. S. 197,
201-202 (1977) (citations omitted).
See also
Cooper v.
Oklahoma, 517 U. S. 348, 355 (1996)
(applying
Patterson test);
Marshall v.
Lonberger, 459
U. S. 422, 438, n. 6 (1983) ("[T]he Due Process Clause does not
permit the federal courts to engage in a finely tuned review of the
wisdom of state evidentiary rules"). Respondent's task, then, is to
establish that a defendant's right to have a jury consider evidence
of his voluntary intoxication in determining whether he possesses
the requisite mental state is a "fundamental principle of
justice."
Our primary guide in determining whether the principle in
question is fundamental is, of course, historical practice.
a difference. So long as the category of excluded evidence is
selected on a basis that has good and traditional policy support,
it ought to be valid.
We do not entirely understand JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S argument that
the vice of § 45-2-203 is that it excludes evidence "essential to
the accused's defense,"
post, at 64; see also
post,
at 72. Evidence of intoxication is not always "essential," any more
than hearsay evidence is always "nonessential."
44
Opinion of SCALIA, J.
See
Medina v.
California, 505 U. S. 437, 446
(1992). Here that gives respondent little support. By the laws of
England, wrote Hale, the intoxicated defendant "shall have no
privilege by this voluntary contracted madness, but shall have the
same judgment as if he were in his right senses." 1 M. Hale, Pleas
of the Crown *32-*33. According to Blackstone and Coke, the law's
condemnation of those suffering from
dementia affectata was
harsher still: Blackstone, citing Coke, explained that the law
viewed intoxication "as an aggravation of the offence, rather than
as an excuse for any criminal misbehaviour." 4 W. Blackstone,
Commentaries *25-*26. This stern rejection of inebriation as a
defense became a fixture of early American law as well. The
American editors of the 1847 edition of Hale wrote:
"Drunkenness, it was said in an early case, can never be
received as a ground to excuse or palliate an offence: this is not
merely the opinion of a speculative philosopher, the argument of
counsel, or the obiter dictum of a single judge, but it is a
sound and long established maxim of judicial policy, from which
perhaps a single dissenting voice cannot be found. But if no other
authority could be adduced, the uniform decisions of our own Courts
from the first establishment of the government, would constitute it
now a part of the common law of the land." 1 Hale, supra, at
*32, n. 3.
In an opinion citing the foregoing passages from Blackstone and
Hale, Justice Story rejected an objection to the exclusion of
evidence of intoxication as follows:
"This is the first time, that I ever remember it to have been
contended, that the commission of one crime was an excuse for
another. Drunkenness is a gross vice, and in the contemplation of
some of our laws is a crime; and I learned in my earlier studies,
that so far from its being in law an excuse for murder, it is
rather an aggravation
45
of its malignity." United States v. Cornell, 25 F.
Cas. 650, 657-658 (No. 14,868) (CC R. 1. 1820).
The historical record does not leave room for the view that the
common law's rejection of intoxication as an "excuse" or
"justification" for crime would nonetheless permit the defendant to
show that intoxication prevented the requisite
mens rea.
Hale, Coke, and Blackstone were familiar, to say the least, with
the concept of
mens rea, and acknowledged that drunkenness
"deprive[s] men of the use of reason," 1 Hale,
supra, at
*32; see also Blackstone,
supra, at *25. It is inconceivable
that they did not realize that an offender's drunkenness might
impair his ability to form the requisite intent; and inconceivable
that their failure to note this massive exception from the general
rule of disregard of intoxication was an oversight. Hale's
statement that a drunken offender shall have the same judgment "as
if he were in his right senses" must be understood as precluding a
defendant from arguing that, because of his intoxication, he could
not have possessed the
mens rea required to commit the
crime. And the same must be said of the exemplar of the commonlaw
rule cited by both Hale and Blackstone, see 1 Hale,
supra,
at *32; Blackstone,
supra, at *26, n.
w, which is
Serjeant Pollard's argument to the King's Bench in
Reniger
v.
Fogossa, 1 Plowd. 1, 19, 75 Eng. Rep. 1, 31 (1550): "[I]f
a person that is drunk kills another, this shall be Felony, and he
shall be hanged for it, and yet he did it through Ignorance, for
when he was drunk he had
no Understanding nor Memory; but
inasmuch as that Ignorance was occasioned by his own Act and Folly,
and he might have avoided it, he shall not be privileged thereby."
(Emphasis added.) See also
Beverley's Case, 4 Co. Rep. 123b,
125a, 76 Eng. Rep. 1118, 1123 (K. B. 1603) ("although he who is
drunk, is for the time
non compos mentis, yet his
drunkenness does not extenuate his act or offence,
nor turn to
his avail" (emphasis added) (footnote omitted)).
46
Opinion of SCALIA, J.
Against this extensive evidence of a lengthy common-law
tradition decidedly against him, the best argument available to
respondent is the one made by his
amicus and conceded by the
State: Over the course of the 19th century, courts carved out an
exception to the common law's traditional across-the-board
condemnation of the drunken offender, allowing a jury to consider a
defendant's intoxication when assessing whether he possessed the
mental state needed to commit the crime charged, where the crime
was one requiring a "specific intent." The emergence of this new
rule is often traced to an 1819 English case, in which Justice
Holroyd is reported to have held that "though voluntary drunkenness
cannot excuse from the commission of crime, yet where, as on a
charge of murder, the material question is, whether an act was
premeditated or done only with sudden heat and impulse, the fact of
the party being intoxicated [is] a circumstance proper to be taken
into consideration." 1 W. Russell, Crimes and Misdemeanors *8
(citing
King v.
Grindley, Worcester Sum.
Assizes 1819, MS). This exception was "slow to take root," however,
Hall, Intoxication and Criminal Responsibility, 57 Harv. L. Rev.
1045, 1049 (1944), even in England. Indeed, in the 1835 case of
King v.
Carroll, 7 Car. & P. 145, 147, 173 Eng.
Rep. 64, 65 (N. P.), Justice Park claimed that Holroyd had
"retracted his opinion" in
Grindley, and said "there
is no doubt that that case is not law." In this country, as late as
1858 the Missouri Supreme Court could speak as categorically as
this:
"To look for deliberation and forethought in a man maddened by
intoxication is vain, for drunkenness has deprived him of the
deliberating faculties to a greater or less extent; and if this
deprivation is to relieve him of all responsibility or to diminish
it, the great majority of crimes committed will go unpunished. This
however is not the doctrine of the common law; and to its maxims,
based as they obviously are upon true wisdom and sound
47
policy, we must adhere." State v. Cross, 27 Mo.
332, 338 (1858).
And as late as 1878, the Vermont Supreme Court upheld the giving
of the following instruction at a murder trial:
"'The voluntary intoxication of one who without provocation
commits a homicide, although amounting to a frenzy, that is,
although the intoxication amounts to a frenzy, does not excuse him
from the same construction of his conduct, and the same legal
inferences upon the question of premeditation and intent, as
affecting the grade of his crime, which are applicable to a person
entirely sober.'" State v. Tatro, 50 Vt. 483, 487
(1878).
See also
Harris v.
United States, 8 App. D. C. 20,
26-30
(1896); Flanigan v.
People, 86 N. Y. 554,
559-560 (1881);
Commonwealth v.
Hawkins, 69 Mass.
463, 466 (1855);
State v.
McCants, 1 Spears 384,
391-395 (S. C. 1842). Eventually, however, the new view won out,
and by the end of the 19th century, in most American jurisdictions,
intoxication could be considered in determining whether a defendant
was capable of forming the specific intent necessary to commit the
crime charged. See Hall,
supra, at 1049;
Hopt v.
People, 104 U. S. 631, 633-634 (1882) (citing cases).
On the basis of this historical record, respondent's
amicus argues that "[t]he old common-law rule ... was no
longer deeply rooted at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was
ratified." Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers as
Amicus Curiae 23. That conclusion is
questionable, but we need not pursue the point, since the argument
of
amicus mistakes the nature of our inquiry. It is not the
State which bears the burden of demonstrating that its rule is
"deeply rooted," but rather respondent who must show that the
principle of procedure
vio lated by the rule (and allegedly
required by due process) is " 'so rooted in the traditions and
conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.'"
Patterson v.
New York, 432 U. S., at 202.
48
Opinion of SCALIA, J.
Thus, even assuming that when the Fourteenth Amendment was
adopted the rule Montana now defends was no longer generally
applied, this only cuts off what might be called an
a
fortiori argument in favor of the State. The burden remains
upon respondent to show that the "new common-law" rule-that
intoxication may be considered on the question of intent-was so
deeply rooted at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment (or perhaps
has become so deeply rooted since) as to be a fundamental principle
which that Amendment enshrined.
That showing has not been made. Instead of the uniform and
continuing acceptance we would expect for a rule that enjoys
"fundamental principle" status, we find that fully one-fifth of the
States either never adopted the "new common-law" rule at issue here
or have recently abandoned it.2 Cf.
Cooper v.
Oklahoma, 517
U. S. 348 (1996) (finding due process violation in a rule
having no common-law pedigree whatever, and adopted, very recently,
by only four States). See also
Martin v.
Ohio,
480 U. S. 228,
236 (1987)
2 Besides Montana, those States are Arizona, see
State v.
Ramos, 133 Ariz. 4, 6, 648 P. 2d 119, 121 (1982) (upholding
statute precluding jury consideration of intoxication for purposes
of determining whether defendant acted "knowingly"); Ariz. Rev.
Stat. Ann. § 13-503 (Supp. 1995-1996) (voluntary intoxication "is
not a defense for any criminal act or requisite state of mind");
Arkansas, see
White v.
State, 290 Ark. 130, 134-137,
717 S. W. 2d 784, 786-788 (1986) (interpreting Ark. Code Ann. §
5-2-207 (1993)); Delaware, see
Wyant v.
State, 519 A.
2d 649, 651 (1986) (interpreting Del. Code Ann., Tit. 11, § 421
(1995)); Georgia, see
Foster v.
State, 258 Ga. 736,
742-745, 374 S. E. 2d 188, 194-196 (1988) (interpreting Ga. Code
Ann. § 16-3-4 (1992)), cert. denied, 490 U. S. 1085 (1989); Hawaii,
see Haw. Rev. Stat. § 702-230(2) (1993),
State v.
Souza, 72 Haw. 246, 248, 813 P. 2d 1384, 1386 (1991) (§
702-230(2) is constitutional); Mississippi, see
Lanier v.
State, 533 So. 2d 473, 478-479 (1988); Missouri, see Mo.
Rev. Stat. § 562.076
(1994), State v.
Erwin, 848 S.
W. 2d 476, 482 (§ 562.076 is constitutional), cert. denied, 510 U.
S. 826 (1993); South Carolina, see
State v.
Vaughn,
268 S. C. 119, 124-126,232 S. E. 2d 328, 330-331 (1977); and
Texas, see
Hawkins v.
State, 605 S. W. 2d 586, 589
(Tex. Crim. App. 1980) (interpreting Tex. Penal Code Ann. §8.04
(1974)).
49
("We are aware that all but two of the States ... have abandoned
the common-law rule ... But the question remains whether those
[two] States are in violation of the Constitution").
It is not surprising that many States have held fast to or
resurrected the common-law rule prohibiting consideration of
voluntary intoxication in the determination of
mens rea,
because that rule has considerable justification 3-which alone
casts doubt upon the proposition that the opposite rule is a
"fundamental principle." A large number of crimes, especially
violent crimes, are committed by intoxicated offenders; modern
studies put the numbers as high as half of all homicides, for
example. See,
e. g., Third Special Report to the U.
S. Congress on Alcohol and Health from the Secretary of Health,
Education, and Welfare 64 (1978); Note, Alcohol Abuse and the Law,
94 Harv. L. Rev. 1660, 1681-1682 (1981). Disallowing consideration
of voluntary intoxication has the
3 In his dissent, JUSTICE SOUTER acknowledges that there
may
be valid policy reasons supporting the Montana law, some of
which were brought forward by States that appeared as
amici,
see
post, at 77-78 (citing Brief for State of Hawaii et al.
as
Amici Curiae 16). He refuses to consider the adequacy of
those reasons, however, because they were not brought forward
by
Montana's lawyers. We do not know why the constitutionality of
Montana's enactment should be subject to the condition subsequent
that its lawyers be able to guess a policy justification that
satisfies this Court. Whatever they guess will of course not
necessarily be the
real reason the Montana Legislature
adopted the provision; Montana's lawyers must speculate about that,
just as we must. Our standard formulation has been: "Where ...
there are plausible reasons for [the legislature's] action, our
inquiry is at an end."
Railroad Retirement Ed. v.
Fritz,
449 U. S. 166, 179 (1980). JUSTICE SOUTER would change that to:
"Where there are plausible reasons that counsel for the party
supporting the legislation have mentioned." Or perhaps it is:
"Where there are plausible reasons that counsel for the Government
(or State) have mentioned"-so that in this case Hawaii's
amicus brief would count if a Hawaiian statute were at
issue. Either way, it is strange for the constitutionality of a
state law to depend upon whether the lawyers hired by the State (or
elected by its people) to defend the law happen to hit the right
boxes on our bingo card of acceptable policy justifications.
50
Opinion of SCALIA, J.
effect of increasing the punishment for all unlawful acts
committed in that state, and thereby deters drunkenness or
irresponsible behavior while drunk. The rule also serves as a
specific deterrent, ensuring that those who prove incapable of
controlling violent impulses while voluntarily intoxicated go to
prison. And finally, the rule comports with and implements
society's moral perception that one who has voluntarily impaired
his own faculties should be responsible for the consequences. See,
e. g., McDaniel v.
State, 356 So. 2d
1151, 1160-1161 (Miss. 1978).4
There is, in modern times, even more justification for laws such
as §45-2-203 than there used to be. Some recent studies suggest
that the connection between drunkenness and crime is as much
cultural as pharmacological-that is, that drunks are violent not
simply because alcohol makes them that way, but because they are
behaving in accord with their learned belief that drunks are
violent. See,
e. g., Collins, Suggested Explanatory
Frameworks to Clarify the Alcohol Use/Violence Relationship, 15
Contemp. Drug Prob. 107, 115 (1988); Critchlow, The Powers of John
Barleycorn, 41 Am. Psychologist 751, 754-755 (July 1986). This not
only adds additional support to the traditional view that an
intoxicated criminal is not deserving of exoneration, but it
suggests that juries-who possess the same learned belief as the
intoxicated offender-will be too quick to accept the claim that the
defendant was biologically incapable of forming the requisite
4 As appears from this analysis, we are in complete agreement
with the concurrence that § 45-2-203 "embodies a legislative
judgment regarding the circumstances under which individuals may be
held criminally responsible for their actions,"
post, at 57.
We also agree that the statute" 'extract[s] the entire subject of
voluntary intoxication from the mens rea inquiry,'"
post, at
58. We believe that this judgment may be implemented, and this
effect achieved, with equal legitimacy by amending the substantive
requirements for each crime, or by simply excluding intoxication
evidence from the trial. We address this as an evidentiary statute
simply because that is how the Supreme Court of Montana chose to
analyze it.
51
mens rea. Treating the matter as one of excluding
misleading evidence therefore makes some sense.5
In sum, not every widespread experiment with a procedural rule
favorable to criminal defendants establishes a fundamental
principle of justice. Although the rule allowing a jury to consider
evidence of a defendant's voluntary intoxication where relevant to
mens rea has gained considerable acceptance, it is of too
recent vintage, and has not received sufficiently uniform and
permanent allegiance, to qualify as fundamental, especially since
it displaces a lengthy commonlaw tradition which remains supported
by valid justifications today.6
III
The Supreme Court of Montana's conclusion that Mont.
Code Ann. § 45-2-203 (1995) violates the Due Process Clause
purported to rest on two lines of our jurisprudence. First,
5 These many valid policy reasons for excluding evidence of
voluntary intoxication refute JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S claim that §
45-2-203 has no purpose other than to improve the State's
likelihood of winning a conviction, see
post, at 66-67,
72-73. Such a claim is no more accurate as applied to this
provision than it would have been as applied to the New York law in
Patterson v.
New York, 432 U. S. 197 (1977),
which placed upon the defendant the burden of proving the
affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance. We upheld
that New York law, even though we found it "very likely true that
fewer convictions of murder would occur if New York were required
to negative the affirmative defense at issue here."
Id., at
209. Here, as in
Patterson, any increase in the chance of
obtaining a conviction is merely a consequence of pursuing
legitimate penological goals.
6JUSTICE O'CONNOR maintains that "to determine whether a
fundamental principle of justice has been violated here, we cannot
consider only the historical disallowance of intoxication evidence,
but must also consider the 'fundamental principle' that a defendant
has a right to a fair opportunity to put forward his defense."
Post, at 71. What JUSTICE O'CONNOR overlooks, however, is
that the historical disallowance of intoxication evidence sheds
light upon what our society has understood by a "fair opportunity
to put forward [a] defense." That "fundamental principle" has
demonstrably not included the right to introduce intoxication
evidence.
52
Opinion of SCALIA, J.
it derived its view that the Due Process Clause requires the
admission of all relevant evidence from the statement in
Chambers v.
Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284, 294
(1973), that "[t]he right of an accused in a criminal trial to due
process is, in essence, the right to a fair opportunity to defend
against the State's accusations." Respondent relies heavily on this
statement, which he terms "the
Chambers principle," Brief
for Respondent 30.
We held in
Chambers that "the exclusion of [certain]
critical evidence, coupled with the State's refusal to permit
[petitioner] to cross-examine McDonald, denied him a trial in
accord with traditional and fundamental standards of due process."
410 U. S., at 302. We continued, however:
"In reaching this judgment, we establish no new principles of
constitutional law. Nor does our holding signal any diminution in
the respect traditionally accorded to the States in the
establishment and implementation of their own criminal trial rules
and procedures. Rather, we hold quite simply that under the
facts and circumstances of this case the rulings of the trial
court deprived Chambers of a fair trial." Id., at 302-303
(emphasis added).
In other words,
Chambers was an exercise in highly
casespecific error correction. At issue were two rulings by the
state trial court at Chambers' murder trial: denial of Chambers'
motion to treat as an adverse witness one McDonald, who had
confessed to the murder for which Chambers was on trial, but later
retracted the confession; and exclusion, on hearsay grounds, of
testimony of three witnesses who would testify that McDonald had
confessed to them. We held that both of these rulings were
erroneous, the former because McDonald's testimony simply
was adverse,
id., at 297-298, and the second because
the statements "were originally made and subsequently offered at
trial under circumstances that provided considerable assurance of
their reliability,"
id.,
53
at 300, and were "well within the basic rationale of the
exception for declarations against interest,"
id., at 302.
Thus, the holding of
Chambers-if one can be discerned from
such a fact-intensive case-is certainly not that a defendant is
denied "a fair opportunity to defend against the State's
accusations" whenever "critical evidence" favorable to him is
excluded, but rather that erroneous evidentiary rulings can, in
combination, rise to the level of a due process violation.
Respondent cites our decision in
Crane v.
Kentucky, 476
U. S. 683 (1986), as evidence that his version of the
"Chambers principle" governs our jurisprudence. He
highlights statements in
Crane to the effect that "an
essential component of procedural fairness is an opportunity to be
heard," which would effectively be denied "if the State were
permitted to exclude competent, reliable evidence ... when such
evidence is central to the defendant's claim of innocence."
Id., at 690; Brief for Respondent 31. But the very next
sentence of that opinion (which respondent omits) makes perfectly
clear that we were
not setting forth an absolute entitlement
to introduce crucial, relevant evidence:
"In the absence of any
valid state justification, exclusion of this kind of
exculpatory evidence deprives a defendant of the basic right to
have the prosecutor's case encounter and survive the crucible of
meaningful adversarial testing." 476 U. S., at 690-691 (emphasis
added) (internal quotation marks omitted). Our holding that the
exclusion of certain evidence in that case violated the defendant's
constitutional rights rested not on a theory that all "competent,
reliable evidence" must be admitted, but rather on the ground that
the Supreme Court of Kentucky's sole rationale for the exclusion
(that the evidence "did not relate to the credibility of the
confession,"
Crane v.
Commonwealth, 690 S. W. 2d 753,
755 (1985)) was wrong. See 476 U. S., at 687.
Crane does
nothing to undermine the principle that the introduction of
relevant evidence can be limited by the State for a "valid" reason,
as it has been by Montana.
54
Opinion of SCALIA, J.
The second line of our cases invoked by the Montana Supreme
Court's opinion requires even less discussion.
In re
Winship, 397 U.
S. 358, 364 (1970), announced the proposition that the Due
Process Clause requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every
fact necessary to constitute the charged crime, and
Sandstrom v.
Montana, 442 U. S. 510, 524
(1979), established a corollary, that a jury instruction which
shifts to the defendant the burden of proof on a requisite element
of mental state violates due process. These decisions simply are
not implicated here because, as the Montana court itself
recognized, "[t]he burden is not shifted" under § 45-2203. 272
Mont., at 124, 900 P. 2d, at 266. The trial judge instructed the
jury that "[t]he State of Montana has the burden of proving the
guilt of the Defendant beyond a reasonable doubt," App. to Pet. for
Cert. 27a, and that "[a] person commits the offense of deliberate
homicide if he purposely or knowingly causes the death of another
human being,"
id., at 28a. Thus, failure by the State to
produce evidence of respondent's mental state would have resulted
in an acquittal. That acquittal did not occur was presumably
attributable to the fact, noted by the Supreme Court of Montana,
that the State introduced considerable evidence from which the jury
might have concluded that respondent acted "purposely" or
"knowingly." See 272 Mont., at 122, 900 P. 2d, at 265. For example,
respondent himself testified that, several hours before the
murders, he had given his handgun to Pavola and asked her to put it
in the glove compartment of Christenson's car.
Ibid.; 5 Tr.
1123. That he had to retrieve the gun from the glove compartment
before he used it was strong evidence that it was his "conscious
object" to commit the charged crimes; as was the execution-style
manner in which a single shot was fired into the head of each
victim.
Recognizing that
Sandstrom is not directly on point, the
Supreme Court of Montana described § 45-2-203 as a
burden-reducing, rather than burden-shifting, statute.
272
55
Mont., at 122-123, 124, 900 P. 2d, at 265, 266. This obviously
was not meant to suggest that the statute formally reduced the
burden of proof to clear and convincing, or to a mere
preponderance; there is utterly no basis for that, neither in the
text of the law nor in the jury instruction that was given. What
the court evidently meant is that, by excluding a significant line
of evidence that might refute
mens rea, the statute made it
easier for the State to meet the requirement of proving
mens
rea beyond a reasonable doubt-reduced the burden in the sense
of making the burden easier to bear. But
any evidentiary
rule can have that effect. "Reducing" the State's burden in this
manner is not unconstitutional, unless the rule of evidence itself
violates a fundamental principle of fairness (which, as discussed,
this one does not). We have "reject[ed] the view that anything in
the Due Process Clause bars States from making changes in their
criminal law that have the effect of making it easier for the
prosecution to obtain convictions."
McMillan v.
Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79, 89, n. 5
(1986).
Finally, we may comment upon the Montana Supreme Court's
citation of the following passage in
Martin v.
Ohio,
480 U. S. 228
(1987), a case upholding a state law that placed on the defendant
the burden of proving self-defense by a preponderance of the
evidence:
"It would be quite different if the jury had been instructed
that self-defense evidence could not be considered in determining
whether there was a reasonable doubt about the State's case, i.
e., that self-defense evidence must be put aside for all
purposes unless it satisfied the preponderance standard. Such an
instruction would relieve the State of its burden and plainly run
afoul of [In rei Winship's mandate. The instructions in this
case ... are adequate to convey to the jury that all of the
evidence, including the evidence going to selfdefense, must be
considered in deciding whether there was a reasonable doubt about
the sufficiency of the
56
GINSBURG, J., concurring in judgment
State's proof of the elements of the crime." Id., at
233234 (citation omitted).
See also 272 Mont., at 122-123, 900 P. 2d, at 265. This passage
can be explained in various ways-e.
g., as an assertion that
the right to have a jury consider self-defense evidence (unlike the
right to have a jury consider evidence of voluntary intoxication)
is fundamental, a proposition that the historical record may
support. But the only explanation needed for present purposes is
the one given in
Kokkonen v.
Guardian Life Ins. Co.,
511 U. S. 375,
379 (1994): "It is to the holdings of our cases, rather than their
dicta, that we must attend." If the
Martin dictum means that
the Due Process Clause requires all relevant evidence bearing on
the elements of a crime to be admissible, the decisions we have
discussed show it to be incorrect.
***
"The doctrines of
actus reus, mens rea, insanity,
mistake, justification, and duress have historically provided the
tools for a constantly shifting adjustment of the tension between
the evolving aims of the criminal law and changing religious,
moral, philosophical, and medical views of the nature of man. This
process of adjustment has always been thought to be the province of
the States."
Powell v.
Texas, 392 U. S. 514, 535-536
(1968) (plurality opinion). The people of Montana have decided to
resurrect the rule of an earlier era, disallowing consideration of
voluntary intoxication when a defendant's state of mind is at
issue. Nothing in the Due Process Clause prevents them from doing
so, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Montana to the
contrary must be reversed.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE GINSBURG, concurring in the judgment.
The Court divides in this case on a question of
characterization. The State's law, Mont. Code Ann. § 45-2-203
(1995),
57
prescribes that voluntary intoxication "may not be taken into
consideration in determining the existence of a mental state which
is an element of [a criminal] offense." For measurement against
federal restraints on state action, how should we type that
prescription? If § 45-2-203 is simply a rule designed to keep out
"relevant, exculpatory evidence," JusTICE O'CONNOR maintains,
post, at 67, Montana's law offends due process. If it is,
instead, a redefinition of the mentalstate element of the offense,
on the other hand, JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S due process concern "would
not be at issue,"
post, at 71, for "[a] state legislature
certainly has the authority to identify the elements of the
offenses it wishes to punish,"
post, at 64, and to exclude
evidence irrelevant to the crime it has defined.
Beneath the labels (rule excluding evidence or redefinition of
the offense) lies the essential question: Can a State, without
offense to the Federal Constitution, make the judgment that two
people are equally culpable where one commits an act stone sober,
and the other engages in the same conduct after his voluntary
intoxication has reduced his capacity for self-control? For the
reasons that follow, I resist categorizing § 45-2-203 as merely an
evidentiary prescription, but join the Court's judgment refusing to
condemn the Montana statute as an unconstitutional enactment.
Section 45-2-203 does not appear in the portion of Montana's
Code containing evidentiary rules (Title 26), the expected
placement of a provision regulating solely the admissibility of
evidence at trial. Instead, Montana's intoxication statute appears
in Title 45 ("Crimes"), as part of a chapter entitled "General
Principles of Liability." Mont. Code Ann., Tit. 45, ch. 2 (1995).
No less than adjacent provisions governing duress and entrapment, §
45-2-203 embodies a legislative judgment regarding the
circumstances under which individuals may be held criminally
responsible for their actions.
58
GINSBURG, J., concurring in judgment
As urged by Montana and its
amici, § 45-2-203 "extract[s]
the entire subject of voluntary intoxication from the mens rea
inquiry," Reply Brief for Petitioner 2, thereby rendering evidence
of voluntary intoxication logically irrelevant to proof of the
requisite mental state. Thus, in a prosecution for deliberate
homicide, the State need not prove that the defendant "purposely or
knowingly cause[d] the death of another," Mont. Code Ann.
§45-5-102(a) (1995), in a purely subjective sense. To obtain a
conviction, the prosecution must prove only that (1) the defendant
caused the death of another with actual knowledge or purpose,
or (2) that the defendant killed "under circumstances that
would otherwise establish knowledge or purpose 'but for' [the
defendant's] voluntary intoxication." Brief for American Alliance
for Rights and Responsibilities et al. as
Amici Curiae 6.
See also Brief for Petitioner 35-36; Brief for United States as
Amicus Curiae 10-12. Accordingly, § 45-2-203 does not
"lighte[n] the prosecution's burden to prove [the] mentalstate
element beyond a reasonable doubt," as JUSTICE O'CONNOR suggests,
post, at 64, for "[t]he applicability of the
reasonable-doubt standard ... has always been dependent on how a
State defines the offense that is charged,"
Patterson v.
New York, 432
U. S. 197, 211, n. 12 (1977).
Comprehended as a measure redefining
mens rea, § 45-2203
encounters no constitutional shoal. States enjoy wide latitude in
defining the elements of criminal offenses, see,
e. g.,
Martin v.
Ohio, 480 U. S. 228, 232
(1987);
Patterson, 432 U. S., at 201-202, particularly when
determining "the extent to which moral culpability should be a
prerequisite to conviction of a crime,"
Powell v.
Texas, 392 U.
S. 514, 545 (1968) (Black, J., concurring). When a State's
power to define criminal conduct is challenged under the Due
Process Clause, we inquire only whether the law "offends some
principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of
our people as to be ranked as fundamental."
Patterson, 432
U. S., at 202 (internal quotation marks omitted). Defining
mens
59
rea to eliminate the exculpatory value of voluntary
intoxication does not offend a "fundamental principle of justice,"
given the lengthy common-law tradition, and the adherence of a
significant minority of the States to that position today. See
ante, at 43-49; see also
post, at 73 (SOUTER, J.,
dissenting) ("[A] State may so define the mental element of an
offense that evidence of a defendant's voluntary intoxication at
the time of commission does not have exculpatory relevance and, to
that extent, may be excluded without raising any issue of due
process.").
Other state courts have upheld statutes similar to § 45-2203,
not simply as evidentiary rules, but as legislative redefinitions
of the mental-state element. See
State v.
Souza, 72
Haw. 246, 249, 813 P. 2d 1384, 1386 (1991) ("legislature was
entitled to redefine the mens rea element of crimes and to exclude
evidence of voluntary intoxication to negate state of mind");
State v.
Ramos, 133 Ariz. 4, 6, 648 P. 2d 119, 121
(1982) ("Perhaps the state of mind which needs to be proven here is
a watered down
mens rea; however, this is the prerogative of
the legislature.");
Commonwealth v.
Rumsey, 309 Pa.
Super. 137, 139, 454 A. 2d 1121, 1122 (1983) (quoting
Powell, 392 U. S., at 536 (plurality opinion))
("Redefinition of the kind and quality of mental activity that
constitutes the
mens rea element of crimes is a permissible
part of the legislature's role in the 'constantly shifting
adjustment between the evolving aims of the criminal law and
changing religious, moral, philosophical, and medical views of the
nature of man.' "). Legislation of this order, if constitutional in
Arizona, Hawaii, and Pennsylvania, ought not be declared
unconstitutional by this Court when enacted in Montana.
If, as the plurality, JUSTICE O'CONNOR, and JUSTICE SOUTER
agree, it is within the legislature's province to instruct courts
to treat a sober person and a voluntarily intoxicated person as
equally responsible for conduct-to place a voluntarily intoxicated
person on a level with a sober personthen the Montana law is no
less tenable under the Federal
60
GINSBURG, J., concurring in judgment
Constitution than are the laws, with no significant difference
in wording, upheld in sister States.1 The Montana Supreme Court did
not disagree with the courts of other States; it simply did not
undertake an analysis in line with the principle that legislative
enactments plainly capable of a constitutional construction
ordinarily should be given that construction. See
Edward
J. DeBartolo Corp. v.
Florida Gulf Coast
Building &
Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575
(1988);
State v.
Lilburn, 265 Mont. 258, 266, 875 P.
2d 1036, 1041 (1994).
The Montana Supreme Court's judgment, in sum, strikes down a
statute whose text displays no constitutional infirmity. If the
Montana court considered its analysis forced by this Court's
precedent,2 it is proper for this Court to say
IJUSTICE BREYER questions the States' authority to treat
voluntarily intoxicated and sober defendants as equally culpable
for their actions. See
post, at 80. He asks, moreover,
post, at 79-80, why a legislature concerned with the high
incidence of crime committed by individuals in an alcohol-impaired
condition would choose the course Montana and several other States
have taken. It would be more sensible, he suggests, to "equate
voluntary intoxication [with] knowledge, and purpose,"
post,
at 80, thus dispensing entirely with the
mens rea
requirement when individuals act under the influence of a
judgment-impairing substance. It does not seem to me strange,
however, that States have resisted such a catchall approach and
have enacted, instead, a measure less sweeping, one that retains a
mens rea requirement, but "define[s] culpable mental state
so as to give voluntary intoxication no exculpatory relevance." See
post, at 75 (SOUTER, J., dissenting). Nor is it at all clear
to me that "a jury unaware of intoxication would likely infer
knowledge or purpose" in the example JUSTICE BREYER provides,
post, at 79. It is not only in fiction, see J. Thurber, The
Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1983) (originally published in
The
New Yorker in 1939), but, sadly, in real life as well, that
sober people drive while daydreaming or otherwise failing to pay
attention to the road.
2 The United States, as
amicus curiae, so suggested at
oral argument.
See Tr. of Oral Arg. 20 ("[T]he State court never really got to
the question of whether there has been a [substantive] change in
the State law, because it [assumed] that, to the extent that there
had been one, it was barred by
[In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358
(1970)].").
61
what prescriptions federal law leaves to the States,3 and
thereby dispel confusion to which we may have contributed, and
attendant state-court misperception.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS, JusTICE SOUTER, and
JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting.
The Montana Supreme Court unanimously held that Mont.
Code Ann. § 45-2-203 (1995) violates due process. I agree. Our
cases establish that due process sets an outer limit on the
restrictions that may be placed on a defendant's ability to raise
an effective defense to the State's accusations. Here, to impede
the defendant's ability to throw doubt on the State's case, Montana
has removed from the jury's consideration a category of evidence
relevant to determination of mental state where that mental state
is an essential element of the offense that must be proved beyond a
reasonable doubt. Because this disallowance eliminates evidence
with which the defense might negate an essential element, the
State's burden to prove its case is made correspondingly easier.
The justification for this disallowance is the State's desire to
increase the likelihood of conviction of a certain class of
defendants who might otherwise be able to prove that they did not
satisfy a requisite element of the offense. In my view, the
statute's effect on the criminal proceeding violates due
process.
I
This Court's cases establish that limitations placed on the
accused's ability to present a fair and complete defense can, in
some circumstances, be severe enough to violate due process. "The
right of an accused in a criminal trial to due process is, in
essence, the right to a fair opportunity to defend against the
State's accusations."
Chambers v.
Mississippi,
410 U. S. 284,
294 (1973). Applying our precedent, the Mon-
3 As the United States observed, it is generally within the
States' domain "to determine what are the elements of criminal
responsibility."
Id., at 19-20.
62
tana Supreme Court held that keeping intoxication evidence away
from the jury, where such evidence was relevant to establishment of
the requisite mental state, violated the due process right to
present a defense, 272 Mont. 114, 123, 900 P. 2d 260, 265 (1995),
and that the instruction pursuant to § 45-2-203 was not harmless
error,
id., at 124, 900 P. 2d, at 266. In rejecting the
Montana Supreme Court's conclusion, the plurality emphasizes that
"any number of familiar and unquestionably constitutional
evidentiary rules" permit exclusion of relevant evidence.
Ante, at 42. It is true that a defendant does not enjoy an
absolute right to present evidence relevant to his defense. See
Crane v.
Kentucky, 476 U. S. 683, 690-691
(1986). But none of the "familiar" evidentiary rules operates as
Montana's does. The Montana statute places a blanket exclusion on a
category of evidence that would allow the accused to negate the
offense's mental-state element. In so doing, it frees the
prosecution, in the face of such evidence, from having to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant nevertheless possessed
the required mental state. In my view, this combination of effects
violates due process.
The proposition that due process requires a fair opportunity to
present a defense in a criminal prosecution is not new. See
id., at 690;
California v.
Trombetta, 467 U. S. 479, 485
(1984). In
Chambers, the defendant had been prevented from
cross-examining a witness and from presenting witnesses on his own
behalf by operation of Mississippi's "voucher" and hearsay rules.
The Court held that the application of these evidentiary rules
deprived the defendant of a fair trial. "[W]here constitutional
rights directly affecting the ascertainment of guilt are
implicated, the hearsay rule may not be applied mechanistically to
defeat the ends of justice." 410 U. S., at 302. The plurality's
characterization of
Chambers as "case-specific error
correction,"
ante, at 52, cannot diminish its force as a
prohibition on enforcement of state evidentiary rules that lead,
without sufficient justification, to
63
the establishment of guilt by suppression of evidence supporting
the defendant's case.
In
Crane, a trial court had held that the defendant could
not introduce testimony bearing on the circumstances of his
confession, on the grounds that this information bore only on the
"voluntariness" of the confession, a matter already resolved. We
held that by keeping such critical information from the jury this
exclusion "deprived petitioner of his fundamental constitutional
right to a fair opportunity to present a defense." 476 U. S., at
687. The Court emphasized that, while States have the power to
exclude evidence through evidentiary rules that serve the interests
of fairness and reliability, limitations on evidence may exceed the
bounds of due process where such limitations undermine a
defendant's ability to present exculpatory evidence without serving
a valid state justification.
In
Washington v.
Texas, 388 U. S. 14 (1967), the
trial court refused to permit a defense witness to testify on the
basis of Texas statutes providing that persons charged or convicted
as coparticipants in the same crime could not testify for one
another, although they could testify for the State. The Court held
that the Constitution prohibited a State from establishing rules to
prevent whole categories of defense witnesses from testifying out
of a belief that such witnesses were untrustworthy. Such action by
the State detracted too severely and arbitrarily from the
defendant's right to call witnesses in his favor.
These cases, taken together, illuminate a simple principle:
Due process demands that a criminal defendant be afforded a fair
opportunity to defend against the State's accusations. Meaningful
adversarial testing of the State's case requires that the defendant
not be prevented from raising an effective defense, which must
include the right to present relevant, probative evidence. To be
sure, the right to present evidence is not limitless; for example,
it does not permit the defendant to introduce any and all evidence
he believes
64
might work in his favor,
Crane, supra, at 690, nor does
it generally invalidate the operation of testimonial privileges,
Washington v.
Texas, supra, at 23, n. 21.
Nevertheless, "an essential component of procedural fairness is an
opportunity to be heard. That opportunity would be an empty one if
the State were permitted to exclude competent, reliable evidence"
that is essential to the accused's defense.
Crane, supra, at
690 (citations omitted). Section 45-2-203 forestalls the
defendant's ability to raise an effective defense by placing a
blanket exclusion on the presentation of a type of evidence that
directly negates an element of the crime, and by doing so, it
lightens the prosecution's burden to prove that mental-state
element beyond a reasonable doubt.
This latter effect is as important to the due process analysis
as the former. A state legislature certainly has the authority to
identify the elements of the offenses it wishes to punish, but once
its laws are written, a defendant has the right to insist that the
State prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of an offense
charged. See
McMillan v.
Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79, 85 (1986);
Patterson v.
New York,
432 U. S. 197, 211, n. 12
(1977) ("The applicability of the reasonable-doubt standard,
however, has always been dependent on how a State defines the
offense that is charged"). "[T]he Due Process Clause protects the
accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable
doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he
is charged."
In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364
(1970);
Patterson, supra, at 210. Because the Montana
Legislature has specified that a person commits "deliberate
homicide" only if he "purposely or knowingly causes the death of
another human being," Mont. Code Ann. §45-5-102(1)(a) (1995), the
prosecution must prove the existence of such mental state in order
to convict. That is, unless the defendant is shown to have acted
purposely or knowingly,
he is not guilty of the offense of
deliberate homicide. The Montana Supreme Court found that it
was inconsistent with the legislature's
65
requirement of the mental state of "purposely" or "knowingly" to
prevent the jury from considering evidence of voluntary
intoxication, where that category of evidence was relevant to
establishment of that mental-state element. 272 Mont., at 122-123,
900 P. 2d, at 265-266.
Where the defendant may introduce evidence to negate a
subjective mental-state element, the prosecution must work to
overcome whatever doubts the defense has raised about the existence
of the required mental state. On the other hand, if the defendant
may
not introduce evidence that might create doubt in the
factfinder's mind as to whether that element was met, the
prosecution will find its job so much the easier. A subjective
mental state is generally proved only circumstantially. If a jury
may not consider the defendant's evidence of his mental state, the
jury may impute to the defendant the culpability of a mental state
he did not possess.
In
Martin v.
Ohio, 480 U. S. 228 (1987), the
Court considered an Ohio statute providing that a defendant bore
the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, an
affirmative defense such as self-defense. We held that placing that
burden on the defendant did not violate due process. The Court
noted in explanation that it would nevertheless have been error to
instruct the jury that "self-defense evidence could not be
considered in determining whether there was a reasonable doubt
about the State's case" where Ohio's definition of the intent
element made self-defense evidence relevant to the State's burden.
Id., at 233-234. "Such an instruction would relieve the
State of its burden and plainly run afoul of
Winship's
mandate."
Id., at 234. In other words, the State's right to
shift the burden of proving an affirmative defense did not include
the power to prevent the defendant from attempting to prove
self-defense in an effort to cast doubt on the State's case. Dictum
or not, this observation explained our reasoning and is similarly
applicable here, where the State has benefited from the defendant's
in-
66
ability to make an argument which, if accepted, could throw
reasonable doubt on the State's proof. The placement of the burden
of proof for affirmative defenses should not be confused with the
use of evidence to negate elements of the offense charged.
Crane noted: "In the absence of any valid state
justification, exclusion of this kind of exculpatory evidence
[circumstances of confession] deprives a defendant of the basic
right to have the prosecutor's case encounter and survive the
crucible of meaningful adversarial testing." 476 U. S., at 690691
(internal quotation marks omitted). The State here had substantial
proof of the defendant's knowledge or purpose in committing these
homicides, and might well have prevailed even had the jury been
permitted to consider the defendant's intoxication. But as in
Crane, the prosecution's case has been insulated from
meaningful adversarial testing by the scale-tipping removal of the
necessity to face a critical category of defense evidence.
The plurality ignores
Crane's caution that the
prosecution must be put to a full test. Rather, it invokes
Crane to emphasize that "introduction of relevant evidence
can be limited by the State for a 'valid' reason, as it has been by
Montana."
Ante, at 53. The State's brief to this Court
enunciates a single reason: Due to the well-known risks related to
voluntary intoxication, it seeks to prevent a defendant's use of
his own voluntary intoxication as basis for exculpation. Brief for
Petitioner 12, 17-19. That is, its interest is to ensure that even
a defendant who lacked the required mental-state element-and is
therefore not guilty-is nevertheless convicted of the offense. The
plurality elaborates,
ante, at 4950, on reasons
why
Montana might wish to preclude exculpation on the basis of
voluntary intoxication, but these reasons-increased punishment and
concomitant deterrence for those who commit unlawful acts while
drunk, and implementation of society's moral perception that those
who become drunk should bear the consequences-merely explain
67
the State's purpose in trying to improve its likelihood of
winning convictions. The final justification proffered by the
plurality on Montana's behalf is that Montana's rule perhaps
prevents juries, who might otherwise be misled, from being "too
quick to accept the claim that the [drunk] defendant was
biologically incapable of forming the requisite
mens rea,"
ante, at 50-51. But this proffered justification is
inconsistent with § 45-2-203's exception for persons who are
involuntarily intoxicated. That exception makes plain that Montana
does
not consider intoxication evidence misleading-but
rather considers it relevant-for the determination of a person's
capacity to form the requisite mental state.
A State's placement of a significant limitation on the right to
defend against the State's accusations "requires that the competing
interest be closely examined."
Chambers, 410 U. S., at 295.
Montana has specified that to prove guilt, the State must establish
that the defendant acted purposely or knowingly, but has prohibited
a category of defendants from effectively disputing guilt through
presentation of evidence relevant to that essential element. And
the evidence is indisputably relevant: The Montana Supreme Court
held that evidence of intoxication is relevant to proof of mental
state, 272 Mont., at 122-123, 900 P. 2d, at 265, and furthermore, §
45-2-203's exception for involuntary intoxication shows that the
legislature does consider intoxication relevant to mental state.
Montana has barred the defendant's use of a category of relevant,
exculpatory evidence for the express purpose of improving the
State's likelihood of winning a conviction against a certain type
of defendant. The plurality's observation that all evidentiary
rules that exclude exculpatory evidence reduce the State's burden
to prove its case,
ante, at 55, is beside the point. The
purpose of the familiar evidentiary rules is not to
alleviate the State's burden, but rather to vindicate some other
goal or value-e.
g., to ensure the reliability and
competency of evidence or to encourage effective communications
within certain relationships.
68
Such rules mayor may not help the prosecution, and when they do
help, do so only incidentally. While due process does not "ba[r]
States from making changes ... that have the
effect of
making it easier for the prosecution to obtain convictions,"
McMillan v.
Pennsylvania, 477 U. S., at 89, n. 5
(emphasis added), an evidentiary rule whose sole
purpose is to boost the State's likelihood of
conviction distorts the adversary process. Cf.
Washington,
388 U. S., at 25 (Harlan, J., concurring in result). Unlike
Chambers and
Washington, where the State at least
claimed that the evidence at issue was unreliable, Montana does not
justify its rule on grounds such as that intoxication evidence is
unreliable, cumulative, privileged, or irrelevant. The sole purpose
for this disallowance is to keep from the jury's consideration a
category of evidence that helps the defendant's case and weakens
the government's case.
The plurality brushes aside this Court's precedents as variously
fact bound, irrelevant, and dicta. I would afford more weight to
principles enunciated in our case law than is accorded in the
plurality's opinion today. It seems to me that a State may not
first determine the elements of the crime it wishes to punish, and
then thwart the accused's defense by categorically disallowing the
very evidence that would prove him innocent.
II
The plurality does, however, raise an important argument for the
statute's validity: the disallowance, at common law, of
consideration of voluntary intoxication where a defendant's state
of mind is at issue. Because this disallowance was permitted at
common law, the plurality argues, its disallowance by Montana
cannot amount to a violation of a "fundamental principle of
justice."
Ante, at 43-51.
From 1551 until its shift in the 19th century, the commonlaw
rule prevailed that a defendant could not use intoxication as an
excuse or justification for an offense, or, it must be assumed, to
rebut establishment of a requisite mental state.
69
"Early law was indifferent to the defence of drunkenness because
the theory of criminal liability was then too crude and too
undeveloped to admit of exceptions ... But with the refinement in
the theory of criminal liability ... a modification of the rigid
old rule on the defence of drunkenness was to be expected." Singh,
History of the Defense of Drunkenness in English Criminal Law, 49
L. Q. Rev. 528, 537 (1933) (footnote omitted). As the plurality
concedes, that significant modification took place in the 19th
century. Courts acknowledged the fundamental incompatibility of a
particular mental-state requirement on the one hand, and the
disallowance of consideration of evidence that might defeat
establishment of that mental state on the other. In the slow
progress typical of the common law, courts began to recognize that
evidence of intoxication was properly admissible for the purpose of
ascertaining whether a defendant had met the required mental-state
element of the offense charged.
This recognition, courts believed, was consistent with the
common-law rule that voluntary intoxication did not excuse
commission of a crime; rather, an element of the crime, the
requisite mental state, was not satisfied and therefore the crime
had not been committed. As one influential mid-19th century case
explained: "Drunkenness is no excuse for crime; yet, in that class
of crimes and offences which depend upon guilty knowledge, or the
coolness and deliberation with which they shall have been
perpetrated, to constitute their commission ... [drunkenness]
should be submitted to the consideration of the Jury"; for, where
the crime required a particular mental state, "it is proper to show
any state or condition of the person that is adverse to the proper
exercise of the mind" in order "[t]o rebut" the mental state or "to
enable the Jury to judge rightly of the matter."
Pigman v.
State, 14 Ohio 555, 556-557 (1846); accord,
Cline v.
State, 43 Ohio St. 332, 334, 1 N. E. Rep. 22, 23 (1885)
("The rule is well settled that intoxication is not a justification
or an excuse for crime .... But in many cases evidence of
intoxication is
70
admissible with a view to the question whether a crime has been
committed; .... As [mental state], in such case, is of the essence
of the offense, it is possible that in proving intoxication you go
far to prove that no offense was committed").
Courts across the country agreed that where a subjective mental
state was an element of the crime to be proved, the defense must be
permitted to show, by reference to intoxication, the absence of
that element. One court commented that it seemed "incontrovertible
and to be universally applicable" that "where the nature and
essence of the crime are made by law to depend upon the peculiar
state and condition of the criminal's mind at the time with
reference to the act done, drunkenness may be a proper subject for
the consideration of the jury, not to excuse or mitigate the
offence but to show that it was not committed."
People v.
Robinson, 2 Park. Crim. 235, 306 (N. Y. Sup. Ct. 1855). See
also
Swan v.
State, 23 Tenn. 136, 141-142 (1843);
State v.
Donovan, 61 Iowa 369, 370-371, 16 N. W. 206,
206-207 (1883);
Mooney v.
State, 33 Ala. 419, 420
(1859);
Aszman v.
State, 123 Ind. 347, 24 N. E. 123
(1890) (citing cases).
With similar reasoning, the Montana Supreme Court recognized the
incompatibility of a jury instruction pursuant to § 45-2-203 in
conjunction with the legislature's decision to require a mental
state of "purposely" or "knowingly" for deliberate homicide. It
held that intoxication is relevant to formation of the requisite
mental state. Unless a defendant is proved beyond a reasonable
doubt to have possessed the requisite mental state, he did not
commit the offense. Elimination of a critical category of defense
evidence precludes a defendant from effectively rebutting the
mental-state element, while simultaneously shielding the State from
the effort of proving the requisite mental state in the face of
negating evidence. It was this effect on the adversarial process
that persuaded the Montana Supreme Court that the disallowance was
unconstitutional.
71
The Due Process Clause protects those "'principle[s] of justice
so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be
ranked as fundamentaL'"
Patterson v.
New York, 432 U.
S., at 202 (citations omitted). At the time the Fourteenth
Amendment was ratified, the common-law rule on consideration of
intoxication evidence was in flux. The plurality argues that
rejection of the historical rule in the 19th century simply does
not establish that the "'new common-law'" rule is a principle of
procedure so "deeply rooted" as to be ranked "fundamental."
Ante, at 46-48. But to determine whether a fundamental
principle of justice has been violated here, we cannot consider
only the historical disallowance of intoxication evidence, but must
also consider the "fundamental principle" that a defendant has a
right to a fair opportunity to put forward his defense, in
adversarial testing where the State must prove the elements of the
offense beyond a reasonable doubt. As concepts of
mens rea
and burden of proof developed, these principles came into conflict,
as the shift in the common law in the 19th century reflects.
III
JUSTICE GINSBURG concurs in the Court's judgment based on her
determination that § 45-2-203 amounts to a redefinition of the
offense that renders evidence of voluntary intoxication irrelevant
to proof of the requisite mental state. The concurrence emphasizes
that States enjoy wide latitude in defining the elements of crimes
and concludes that, "[c]omprehended as a measure redefining
mens
rea, §45-2-203 encounters no constitutional shoal."
Ante, at 58.
A state legislature certainly possesses the authority to define
the offenses it wishes to punish. If the Montana Legislature chose
to redefine this offense so as to alter the requisite mental-state
element, the due process problem presented in this case would not
be at issue.
There is, however, no indication that such a "redefinition"
occurred. JUSTICE GINSBURG'S reading of Montana law is
72
plainly inconsistent with that given by the Montana Supreme
Court, and therefore cannot provide a valid basis to uphold §
45-2-203's operation. "We are, of course, bound to accept the
interpretation of [state] law by the highest court of the State."
Hortonville Joint School Dist. No.1 v.
Hortonville Ed.
Assn., 426 U. S.
482, 488 (1976); accord,
Groppi v.
Wisconsin,
400 U. S. 505,
507 (1971);
Kingsley Int'l Pictures Corp. v.
Regents of
Univ. of N.
Y., 360 U. S. 684, 688
(1959). The Montana Supreme Court held that evidence of voluntary
intoxication
was relevant to the requisite mental state. 272
Mont., at 122, 900 P. 2d, at 265. And in summing up the court's
holding, Justice Nelson's concurrence explains that while the
legislature may enact the statutes it chooses, § 452-203
"effectively and impermissibly ... lessens the burden of the State
to prove beyond a reasonable doubt an essential element of the
offense charged-the mental state elementby statutorily precluding
the jury from considering the very evidence that might convince
them that the State had not proven that element."
Id., at
128, 900 P. 2d, at 268. The Montana Supreme Court's decision cannot
be read consistently with a "redefinition" of the offense.
Because the management of criminal justice is within the
province of the States,
Patterson, supra, at 201-202, this
Court is properly reluctant to interfere in the States' authority
in these matters. Nevertheless, the Court must invalidate those
rules that violate the requirements of due process. The plurality
acknowledges that a reduction of the State's burden through
disallowance of exculpatory evidence is unconstitutional if it
violates a principle of fairness.
Ante, at 55. I believe
that such a violation is present here. Montana's disallowance of
consideration of voluntary-intoxication evidence removes too
critical a category of relevant, exculpatory evidence from the
adversarial process by prohibiting the defendant from making an
essential argument and permitting the prosecution to benefit from
its suppression. Montana's purpose is to increase the likelihood of
conviction
73
of a certain class of defendants, who might otherwise be able to
prove that they did not satisfy a requisite element of the offense.
The historical fact that this disallowance once existed at common
law is not sufficient to save the statute today. I would affirm the
judgment of the Montana Supreme Court.
JUSTICE SOUTER, dissenting.
I have no doubt that a State may so define the mental element of
an offense that evidence of a defendant's voluntary intoxication at
the time of commission does not have exculpatory relevance and, to
that extent, may be excluded without raising any issue of due
process. I would have thought the statute at issue here (Mont. Code
Ann. § 45-2203 (1995)) had implicitly accomplished such a
redefinition, but I read the opinion of the Supreme Court of
Montana as indicating that it had no such effect, and I am bound by
the state court's statement of its domestic law.
Even on the assumption that Montana's definitions of the
purposeful and knowing culpable mental states were untouched by §
45-2-203, so that voluntary intoxication remains relevant to each,
it is not a foregone conclusion that our cases preclude the State
from declaring such intoxication evidence inadmissible. A State may
typically exclude even relevant and exculpatory evidence if it
presents a valid justification for doing so. There may (or may not)
be a valid justification to support a State's decision to exclude,
rather than render irrelevant, evidence of a defendant's voluntary
intoxication. Montana has not endeavored, however, to advance an
argument to that effect. Rather, the State has effectively
restricted itself to advancing undoubtedly sound reasons for
defining the mental state element so as to make voluntary
intoxication generally irrelevant (though its own Supreme Court has
apparently said the legislature failed to do that) and to
demonstrating that evidence of voluntary intoxication was
irrelevant at common law (a fact that goes
74
part way, but not all the way, to answering the due process
objection). In short, I read the State Supreme Court opinion as
barring one interpretation that would leave the statutory scheme
constitutional, while the State's failure to offer a justification
for excluding relevant evidence leaves us unable to discern whether
there may be a valid reason to support the statute as the State
Supreme Court appears to view it. I therefore respectfully dissent
from the Court's judgment.
I
The plurality OpInIOn convincingly demonstrates that when the
Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause was added to the
Constitution in 1868, the common law as it then stood either
rejected the notion that voluntary intoxication might be
exculpatory,
ante, at 43-45, or was at best in a state of
flux on that issue. See also
ante, at 68-71 (O'CONNOR, J.,
dissenting). That is enough to show that Montana's rule that
evidence of voluntary intoxication is inadmissible on the issue of
culpable mental state contravenes no principle" 'so rooted in the
traditions and conscience of our people,'" as they stood in 1868,
"'as to be ranked as fundamental,'"
ante, at 47 (quoting
Patterson v.
New York, 432 U. S. 197, 202
(1977)). But this is not the end of the due process enquiry.
Justice Harlan's dissenting opinion in
Poe v.
Ullman,
367 U. S. 497, 542 (1961), teaches that the "tradition" to
which we are tethered "is a living thing." 1 What the historical
practice does not rule out as inconsistent with "the concept of
ordered liberty,"
Palko v.
Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325
1 "The balance of which I speak is the balance struck by this
country, having regard to what history teaches are the traditions
from which it developed as well as the traditions from which it
broke. That tradition is a living thing. A decision of this Court
which radically departs from it could not long survive, while a
decision which builds on what has survived is likely to be sound.
No formula could serve as a substitute, in this area, for judgment
and restraint."
Poe v.
Ullman, 367 U. S., at 542
(Harlan, J., dissenting).
75
(1937), must still pass muster as rational in today's world. Cf.
Medina v.
California, 505 U. S. 437, 454 (1992)
(O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment) (although "historical
pedigree can give a procedural practice a presumption of
constitutionality ... , the presumption must surely be
rebuttable").
In this case, the second step of the due process enquiry leads
to a line of precedent discussed in JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S dissent,
ante, at 61-68, involving the right to present a defense.
See,
e. g., Washington v.
Texas, 388 U. S. 14,22 (1967) (a
State cannot arbitrarily bar "whole categories of defense witnesses
from testifying");
id., at 25 (Harlan, J., concurring in
result) (State may not "recogniz[e] [testimony as] relevant and
competent [but] arbitrarily ba[r] its use by the defendant");
Chambers v.
Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284, 294 (1973)
(defendant entitled to a "fair opportunity to defend against the
State's accusations");
Crane v.
Kentucky, 476 U. S. 683, 690 (1986)
(States may not exclude "competent, reliable evidence" that is
"central to the defendant's claim of innocence" absent an adequate
justification). Collectively, these cases stand for the
proposition, as the Court put it in
Chambers, supra, at 295,
that while the right to present relevant evidence may be limited,
the Constitution "requires that the competing interest [said to
justify the limitation] be closely examined."
II
Given the foregoing line of authority, Montana had at least one
way to give effect to its judgment that defendants should not be
permitted to use evidence of their voluntary intoxication to defeat
proof of culpable mental state, and perhaps a second. First, it
could have defined culpable mental state so as to give voluntary
intoxication no exculpatory relevance. While the Due Process Clause
requires the government to prove the existence of every element of
the offense beyond a reasonable doubt,
In re Winship,
397 U. S. 358,
364 (1970), within fairly broad limits the definition of those
elements is up to the State. We thus noted in
Patterson v.
New York,
76
432 U. S., at 211, n. 12, that the various "due process
guarantees are dependent upon the law as defined in the legislative
branches," particularly on the legislature's enumeration of the
elements of an offense, see
id., at 210 ("[T]he Due Process
Clause requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
all of the elements included in the definition of the offense of
which the defendant is charged"). See also
McMillan v.
Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79,85 (1986)
("[I]n determining what facts must be proved beyond a reasonable
doubt the state legislature's definition of the elements of the
offense is usually dispositive");
Martin v.
Ohio,
480 U. S. 228,
233 (1987) (same).
While I therefore find no apparent constitutional reason why
Montana could not render evidence of voluntary intoxication
excludable as irrelevant by redefining "knowledge" and "purpose,"
as they apply to the mental state element of its substantive
offenses, or by making some other provision for mental state,2 I do
not believe that I am free to conclude that Montana has done so
here. Our view of state law is limited by its interpretation in the
State's highest court, see
R. A. v: v.
St. Paul,
505 U. S. 377,
381 (1992);
Murdock v.
Memphis, 20 Wall. 590 (1875),
and I am not able to square the State Supreme Court's opinion in
this case with the position advanced by the State here (and
supported by the United States as
amicus curiae), that
Montana's legislature changed the definition of culpable mental
states when it enacted §45-2-203. See 272 Mont. 114, 122, 900 P. 2d
260, 265 (1995) ("It is clear that such evidence [of intoxication]
was relevant to the issue of whether Egelhoff acted knowingly and
purposely");
id., at 119-122, 900 P. 2d, at 263-265 (noting
and not disputing Egelhoff's claim that § 45-2-203 removes from the
jury's consideration facts relevant to a
2 See
State v.
Souza, 72 Haw. 246, 249, 813 P. 2d
1384, 1386 (1991) ("The legislature was entitled to redefine the
mens rea element of crimes and to exclude evidence of voluntary
intoxication to negate state of mind").
77
determination of mental state, an essential element of the
offense).
A second possible (although by no means certain) option may also
be open. Even under a definition of the mental state element that
would treat evidence of voluntary intoxication as relevant and
exculpatory, the exclusion of such evidence is typically
permissible so long as a State presents a "'valid' reason,"
ante, at 66 (O'CONNOR, J., dissenting), to justify keeping
it out.
Chambers and its line of precedent certainly
recognize that such evidence may often properly be excluded. See
Chambers, supra, at 295. As the plurality notes,
ante, at 42, Federal Rules of Evidence 403 (addressing
prejudice, confusion, misleading the jury, waste of time, etc.) and
802 (hearsay) provide two examples of an adequate reason for
excluding relevant evidence.
Hence, I do not rule out the possibility of justifying exclusion
of relevant intoxication evidence in a case like this. At the
least, there may be reasons beyond those actually advanced by
Montana that might have induced a State to reject its prior law
freely admitting intoxication evidence going to mental state.
A State (though not necessarily Montana) might, for example,
argue that admitting intoxication evidence on the issue of culpable
mental state but not on a defense of incapacity (as to which it is
widely assumed to be excludable as generally irrelevant 3) would be
irrational since both capacity to obey the law and purpose to
accomplish a criminal result presuppose volitional ability. See
Model Penal Code § 4.01 ("A person is not responsible for criminal
conduct if at the time of
3See American Law Institute, Model Penal Code §2.08(4) (1985),
which deems intoxication relevant for this purpose only where by
reason of "pathological intoxication" an "actor at the time of his
conduct lacks substantial capacity ... to conform his conduct to
the requirements of law." The Model Penal Code further defines
"pathological intoxication" as "intoxication grossly excessive in
degree, given the amount of the intoxicant, to which the actor does
not know he is susceptible."
Id., §2.08(5)(c).
78
such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks
substantial capacity ... to conform his conduct to the requirements
of law") and § 2.02(2)(a)(i) ("A person acts purposely with respect
to a material element of an offense when ... it is his conscious
object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a
result"). And quite apart from any technical irrationality, a State
might think that admitting the evidence in question on culpable
mental state but not capacity (when each was a jury issue in a
given case) would raise too high a risk of juror confusion. See
Brief for State of Hawaii et al. as
Amici Curiae 16 ("[U]se
of [intoxication] evidence runs an unacceptable risk of potential
manipulation by defendants and [will lead to] confusion of juries,
who may not adequately appreciate that intoxication evidence is to
be used for the question of mental state, not for purposes of
showing an excuse"). While Thomas Reed Powell reportedly suggested
that "learning to think like a lawyer is when you learn to think
about one thing that is connected to another without thinking about
the other thing it is connected to," Teachout, Sentimental
Metaphors, 34 UCLA L. Rev. 537, 545 (1986), a State might argue
that its law should be structured on the assumption that its jurors
typically will not suffer from this facility.4
Quite apart from the fact that Montana has made no such
arguments for justification here, however, I am not at all sure why
such arguments would go any further than justify-
4 Teachout notes that Powell acknowledged that this concept was
not explicitly described in his essay entitled A Comment on
Professor Sabine's "Pragmatic Approach to Politics," 81 Pol. Sci.
Q. 52, 59 (1966), but in a letter wrote:
"If you think you can think about a thing that is hitched to
other things without thinking about the things that it is hitched
to, then you have a legal mind."
Quoted in Teachout, Sentimental Metaphors, 34 UCLA L. Rev., at
545, n.17.
79
ing redefinition of mental states (the first option above). I do
not understand why they would justify the State in cutting the
conceptual corner5 by leaving the definitions of culpable mental
states untouched but excluding evidence relevant to this proof.
Absent a convincing argument for cutting that corner,
Chambers and the like constrain us to hold the current
Montana statute unconstitutional. I therefore respectfully
dissent.
JUSTICE BREYER, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS joins, dissenting.
I join JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S dissent. As the dissent says, and as
JUSTICE SOUTER agrees, the Montana Supreme Court did not understand
Montana's statute to have redefined the mental element of
deliberate homicide. In my view, however, this circumstance is not
simply happenstance or a technical matter that deprives us of the
power to uphold that statute. To have read the statute
differently-to treat it as if it had redefined the mental
element-would produce anomalous results. A statute that makes
voluntary intoxication the legal equivalent of purpose or knowledge
but only where external circumstances would establish purpose or
knowledge in the absence of intoxication, see
ante, at
58 (GINSBURG, J., concurring), is a statute that turns guilt or
innocence not upon state of mind, but upon irrelevant external
circumstances. An intoxicated driver stopped at an intersection who
unknowingly accelerated into a pedestrian would likely be found
guilty, for a jury unaware of intoxication would likely infer
knowledge or purpose. An identically intoxicated driver racing
along a highway who unknowingly sideswiped another car would likely
be found innocent, for a jury unaware of intoxication would likely
infer negligence. Why would a legislature want to write a statute
that
5 Cf.
Rock Island, A. &
L. R. Co. v.
United
States, 254 U. S.
141, 143 (1920) ("Men must turn square corners when they deal
with the Government").
80
draws such a distinction, upon which a sentence of life
imprisonment, or death, may turn? If the legislature wanted to
equate voluntary intoxication, knowledge, and purpose, why would it
not write a statute that plainly says so, instead of doing so in a
roundabout manner that would affect, in dramatically different
ways, those whose minds, deeds, and consequences seem identical? I
would reserve the question of whether or not such a hypothetical
statute might exceed constitutionallimits. Cf.
McMillan v.
Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79, 85-86
(1986);
Patterson v.
New York, 432 U. S. 197, 210
(1977); Mullaney v.
Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684, 698-699
(1975).
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