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State v. Egelhoff7/6/1995
nable doubt about the sufficiency of the State's proof of the elements of the crime.
When the prosecution has made out a prima facie case and survives a motion to acquit, the jury may nevertheless not convict if the evidence offered by the defendant raises any reasonable doubt about the existence of any fact necessary for the finding of guilt. Evidence creating a reasonable doubt could easily fall far short of proving self-defense by a preponderance of the evidence. . . .
Martin, 480 U.S. at 233-34, 107 S.Ct. at 1102, 94 L.Ed.2d at 274-75. While the above statement may not have been essential to the holding of the Court, it emphasizes a clear distinction between placing a burden upon a defendant to prove a specific aspect of her defense, in this case self defense, and instructing a jury that self defense evidence could not be considered in determining whether there was a reasonable doubt as to her guilt. The analysis is clearly applicable to our present case. While Egelhoff was given the opportunity to present evidence of his level of intoxication, the instruction prevented consideration by the jury as it decided whether or not there was a reasonable doubt as to Egelhoff's acting "knowingly" and "purposely." Because the jury was not allowed to consider that evidence for such a purpose, the State was relieved of part of its burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged. It was reversible error to instruct the jury not to consider it.
By allowing the jury to consider such evidence, we permit the jury to make its decision on all of the relevant evidence as required under Martin. By instructing the jury that it may not consider intoxication evidence for purposes of determining a mental state of "knowingly" or "purposely," the jury may be misled into believing the State has proved the mental state beyond a reasonable doubt and that is why defendant cannot introduce evidence in opposition to a specific state of mind. The State should never escape its burden of proof of each element of the offense.
Egelhoff's argument focuses on "burden shifting" which is not technically what happens in a case such as the present one. The burden is not shifted but rather it is lessened because the defendant is precluded from presenting arguments concerning the prosecution's "failure of proof" of the subjective mental state element required for conviction of a crime which includes the mental state of acting "knowingly" or "purposely."
Similar arguments were presented in State v. Byers (1993), 261 Mont. 17, 41-41, 861 P.2d 860, 875. There are significant factual differences between Byers and the present case, because Byers did not rely upon intoxication as an element of his defense and because there was no question in Byers that he had committed the two homicides, whereas in the present case Egelhoff relies on the intoxication defense as part of his argument and the basic issue was whether or not he actually committed the homicides.
In Byers the holding was that the district court did not commit reversible error by instructing the jury that voluntary intoxication is not a defense to criminal activity. Our holding in the present case does not conflict with the express holding in Byers. In Byers we did state that the intoxication instruction which was identical to that in the present case did not relieve the State of its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt all of the elements of the offense. In making that statement, although it was dicta, we were not correct as appears from our foregoing analysis. We overrule any of the statements made in Byers to the extent that it indicates it
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