CJS 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Friends House, Mens Rea, Circular Reasoning
8 Dec 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Alcoholic who drinks a 26er of brandy and beers and goes to woman friend"s house, wheels her wheelchair over, and have sex with her. Police comes to his house the next day, but he doesn"t remember. His evidence: he was drunk enough that he blacked out. Expert opinion: ordinary person who consumed that much alcohol would be in a coma or die. Should he be held responsible? (because he willingly got himself intoxicated) If we go by what was said in leary, then he can"t raise drunkenness as a defense. Creates problems for us in criminal law, because law tells us that we need to have a guilty mind (have to know you"re doing the thing that the law says is wrong) can"t punish the morally blameless. Acquitted at trial, because he was lacking mens rea. Drunk enough to be seen as an automaton (re: man who killed in laws in his sleep)
