OUJI-CR 8-42
INVOLUNTARY INTOXICATION DEFINED
Involuntary intoxication is a state of intoxication that has been induced (under duress on the part of another)/(by force of another)/(by ignorance of the character of medication or other substances taken, whether the ignorance results from the defendant's own innocent mistake or from fraud/trickery of another).
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Authority: Choate v. State, 19 Okl. Cr. 169, 197 P. 1060 (1921); Perryman v. State, 12 Okl. Cr. 500. 159 P. 937 (1916).
Notes on Use
This instruction should be given whenever the defense is applicable.
Committee Comments
In Jones v. State, 648 P.2d 1251, 1258 (Okl. Cr. 1982), the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals provided the following analysis of the defense of involuntary intoxication:
Involuntary intoxication is a complete defense where the defendant is so intoxicated that he is unable to distinguish between right and wrong, the same standard as applied in an insanity defense. An involuntary intoxication defense is available where the intoxication results from: 1) fraud, trickery or duress of another; 2) accident or mistake on his own part; 3) a pathological condition; 4) ignorance as to the effects of prescribed medication.
The question of whether the defendant's intoxication was involuntary is a fact question for the jury.
648 P.2d at 1258.
Despite the similar standard by which the defense of involuntary intoxication is defined, involuntary intoxication is not identical with the defense of insanity. For the defense of involuntary intoxication, no claim is necessary that the incapacity to know right from wrong, or the nature and consequences of acts, is a result of mental disease. Involuntary intoxication is solely a claim that the person, without personal culpability for the intoxication, was so intoxicated at the particular time as to be unable to know right from wrong, or the nature and consequences of his acts.
Insanity, on the other hand, requires that the incapacity to know right from wrong, or the nature and consequences of acts, be related to mental disease. Intoxication can, after a period of time, so debilitate the mind that the mental faculties of the person are destroyed. This is defined as delirium tremens. If this conditions destroys a person's mental faculties, the incapacity to know right from wrong, or the nature and consequences of acts, would be a product of this condition. In this latter instance, the appropriate defense is insanity, not involuntary intoxication.