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JOHNS v. STATE9/1/1982
), this issue was decided. The Arkansas Supreme Court held that voluntary intoxication remained a defense to specific intent crimes where the intoxication negated the required intent. The court held that by removing self-induced intoxication as a statutory defense, the legislature, in effect, reinstated any prior Arkansas common law on the subject.
In Ellis v. State, 267 Ark. 690, 690 S.W.2d 309 (Ark. App. 1979), the Arkansas Court of Appeals also recognized that the common law had been reinstated. This court, in Ellis, recognized that while self-induced intoxication appears to remain a common law defense to a crime in which an essential element is that the act be done knowingly or purposely, the defendant has the burden of establishing the defense by a preponderance of the evidence. The court held that since appellant offered an instruction which contained no provision as to the burden of proof and the instruction had no provision that defendant must be so intoxicated at the time of the act that he was incapable of acting purposefully, it was not error for the trial judge to refuse to give the instruction.
In order to be found guilty of battery in the second degree, it was necessary for appellant to be adjudged capable of forming a purpose to prevent an officer from acting in the line of duty. It was undisputed that appellant was intoxicated, and the determination whether the appellant was in such a state of intoxication as to render him incapable of forming such a purpose is solely within the province of the jury.
The judgment of the trial court is reversed and the case is remanded for a new trial.
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