The Use of Intoxication as a Defense to Rape, Sexual Battery, or Murder Charges in Louisiana
People often assume that being drunk or high when a crime occurred is a built-in excuse. Louisiana law is far more limited than that, and whether intoxication helps at all turns on a single question: what kind of intent the charged crime requires.
Getting intoxicated is ordinarily a voluntary choice, and the law is reluctant to let that choice become an escape hatch. At the same time, intoxication can prevent a person from forming the mental state a crime demands, and in narrow circumstances, the law recognizes that. If you have questions about how intoxication affects your case, you should consult an experienced Louisiana criminal defense attorney at the Law Offices of Philip B. Adams.
The Governing Statute: La. R.S. 14:15
Every intoxication question in a Louisiana criminal case starts with La. R.S. 14:15. Under that statute, an intoxicated or drugged condition at the time of the offense is generally immaterial, with two exceptions. First, involuntary intoxication that is the direct cause of the crime exempts the accused from criminal responsibility entirely. Second, voluntary intoxication is a defense only where it precludes a specific criminal intent (or special knowledge) that the crime requires. Everything else follows from those two rules.
Specific Intent Versus General Intent: The Whole Ballgame
The voluntary-intoxication defense rises or falls on whether the charged crime is a specific-intent or a general-intent offense. A specific-intent crime requires that the accused actually desired a particular result — for example, the specific intent to kill. A general-intent crime does not require that the accused desired a particular result; it is enough that, under the circumstances, he must have been aware that those consequences were reasonably certain to follow from his conduct — a mental state the law lets the jury infer from the act itself.
Voluntary intoxication can negate specific intent, but it does nothing for a general-intent crime. Louisiana courts presume that a person intends the natural consequences of becoming drunk, so voluntary drinking is no excuse where the offense requires only general intent. This is why the type of charge matters so much.
Where Voluntary Intoxication Can Help: Murder
Murder is the clearest example of a crime where voluntary intoxication can matter. First-degree murder and the specific-intent form of second-degree murder both require a specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm. If a defendant was so intoxicated that he could not form that intent, that fact is a defense to the specific-intent charge.
That rarely means walking out the door. More often, it means a reduction in grade: a jury that finds the specific intent was negated may return a verdict on a lesser homicide — manslaughter or negligent homicide, depending on the facts. The bar is high. Evidence that the defendant had been drinking, or does not remember the night, is not enough; the intoxication must have been severe enough to actually preclude the intent, which ordinarily requires real proof of extreme impairment.
Two important limits apply. First, this reaches only the specific-intent forms of murder. Where the State proceeds on a felony-murder theory — a killing committed during an enumerated felony, such as armed robbery, which requires no intent to kill — intoxication is no defense to the homicide. Second, if the defendant formed the intent to kill while sober and then drank to work up the nerve, intoxication is no defense; the intent already existed, so the drinking did not preclude it.
Where Voluntary Intoxication Does Not Help: Rape and Sexual Battery
Here is where many people are surprised. In Louisiana, completed rape and sexual battery are general-intent crimes. Because voluntary intoxication only negates specific intent, it is not a defense to either charge, no matter how drunk or high the accused was. The State does not have to prove that the accused "desired" a particular result; it only has to prove the act.
There is a narrower wrinkle worth knowing. An attempt to commit a crime is itself a specific-intent offense under La. R.S. 14:27. So while completed rape and sexual battery are general-intent crimes, attempted rape and attempted sexual battery require specific intent, and evidence of intoxication can be relevant to that intent. The same is true of certain offenses defined by purpose, such as indecent behavior with juveniles, which requires the specific intent to arouse or gratify sexual desires. The lesson is that the label on the charge is not the end of the analysis; the precise elements control.
Involuntary Intoxication: The More Powerful, and Rarer, Defense
Involuntary intoxication is treated very differently. Under R.S. 14:15(1), if the intoxicated condition was involuntarily produced and was the direct cause of the crime, the accused is exempt from criminal responsibility altogether. And unlike voluntary intoxication, it is not limited to specific-intent crimes — it can apply even to general-intent offenses. In practical terms, that makes involuntary intoxication the only intoxication defense available against a rape or sexual battery charge.
Involuntary intoxication arises when a person is drugged or intoxicated without knowing it or against his will. The classic examples are a drink spiked at a bar or "brownies" that turn out to be laced. The defense is powerful but difficult to prove, and there is often a practical irony to it: a person impaired enough to be truly involuntarily intoxicated may not have been physically capable of committing the offense in the first place. Still, where the facts support it, involuntary intoxication is the strongest intoxication defense Louisiana law provides.
A Word About DUI Deaths
None of this changes the result in a DUI-related death. A vehicular homicide is generally not an intentional killing, and intoxication is built into the offense itself — so being drunk is not a defense; it is part of what the State has to prove.
Contact a Louisiana Criminal Defense Lawyer Today
Contact me today at the Law Offices of Philip B. Adams. I am a dedicated Louisiana criminal defense attorney, and I defend my clients' rights at every stage of the case. Complete my "Contact Us" page here. You may significantly benefit from having an attorney with the legal competence and experience to assist you with your Louisiana criminal case. My office is in Shreveport, and I handle criminal defense cases throughout Louisiana.
