Insanity is based on a mental disease or defect, not a reaction to a drug. So, no insanity defense.

Voluntary intoxication is not a defense. So what if the illegal drug had a surprisingly strong effect? That's why its an illegal drug.

[This message was edited by John Bradley on 07-12-05 at .]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Carlos O. Garcia:
Here is an interesting defense that came up during a motion to revoke probation case in which the defendant had tested positive for cocain. The defendant claimed that she did not use drugs and that she did not knowingly or intentionally ingest drugs. When asked how the the drugs got into her system, she stated (in more detail than I will post) that she was gay and that the only thing she could think of is that during oral sex with her girlfriend that the drugs may have gotten into her system. According to the defendant, her girlfriend would sometimes put cocain in her vagina. I have not come up with a name for this defense. The defendant was revoked.

---

Oh, yes. That's the old "Getting high by going low" defense. Classic.

Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

May 6, 2006 Saturday

Henry Dillon couldn't resist. That was the former assistant city attorney's defense in his rape trial in federal court last week.
Rebutting the accusations of four women who said he raped them after they went into his law office seeking a break on traffic offenses or municipal court charges, Mr. Dillon told the jury that when three of the women entered his office they were overcome by their attraction for him. They started kissing on him and taking off their clothes, and well, a man's just going to be a man.
As for the fourth woman who testified that Mr. Dillon raped her, the defendant claimed to have never seen her before. A fifth woman, who was prepared to tell the jury that she, too, was victimized by the lawyer, was not allowed by the judge to testify. Yet another woman, a friend of the defendant's, accused him of rape in 1998, but then-District Attorney Harry Connick chose not to prosecute the case.
There shouldn't be any more accusations for a long time. The jury determined that Henry Dillon used the power of his office to rape two women, and depending on what U.S. Attorney Jim Letten requests and what U.S. District Judge Lance Africk decides, Mr. Dillon could go to prison for life.
Every citizen is entitled to defend himself or herself in court, and maybe the thought of a life sentence made Mr. Dillon and his attorneys desperate enough to employ the Jezebel defense, which suggests that the women were oversexed and conniving. But that doesn't make the defense strategy any less insulting. His version of events simply wasn't plausible.
Nor did it flatter him. In fact, Mr. Dillon's own testimony suggested that he was unmoored by ethical concerns. While he should have been working, he was, according to his testimony, turning his office into a cheap motel and brazenly carrying on extramarital affairs.
Jurors had a choice. They could believe that Mr. Dillon lured the women into his office, raped them and threatened them if they told anybody, or they could believe that women who walked into his office were routinely overwhelmed by the defendant's sex appeal and pounced upon him without his prompting.
In other words, they could believe what he said, or they could believe what she and she and she and she said. They could believe that New Orleans had a sexual predator using the power of his office to force women into submission, or they could believe the defendant was an innocent recipient of nonstop sexual advances.
Their verdict indicates that jurors didn't share Mr. Dillon's high opinion of himself.

I had a defendant who was found in possession of 6 small bags of cocaine in her underware. She was an inmate at the time. Her defense was that she borrowed the underware and didn't realize the underware had the crack in it. (no pun intended)

Study: 16 million might have road rage disorder
Doctors say condition is far more common than they thought

Monday, June 5, 2006; Posted: 7:38 p.m. EDT (23:38 GMT)

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- To you, that angry, horn-blasting tailgater is suffering from road rage. But doctors have another name for it -- intermittent explosive disorder -- and a new study suggests it is far more common than they realized, affecting up to 16 million Americans.

"People think it's bad behavior and that you just need an attitude adjustment, but what they don't know ... is that there's a biology and cognitive science to this," said Dr. Emil Coccaro, chairman of psychiatry at the University of Chicago's medical school.

[For 10 extra points, explain why this defense, even if true, won't work.]

Man Claims Ambien Made Him 'Sleep Drive'


An Austin man is one of several people nationwide claiming a certain medication lead them to do things they didn't even know they were doing putting themselves and you in danger.

Austinite Jeff Bowman did what millions of Americans do every night -- take Ambien to fall asleep. Except this one-time pharmaceutical rep says his life has been a living nightmare ever since.

"The next thing I knew I was being arrested for DWI. The officer kept saying, 'Just admit you've been drinking.' I said, 'No, it's Ambien,'" Bowman said.

Bowman says Ambien caused him to "sleep drive" from the Westlake area to Cameron Road in North Austin -- some 20 miles. That's when Austin police pulled him over.

"I don't remember the drive or anything. There's absolutely nothing I remember. Other than I remember he said, 'Walk forward and say one, two.' and I thought I fell. But in the video it showed I walked all the way came back and talked to him and I don't recall any of it."

KXAN NBC Austin has obtained the dashboard cam video of the arrest. [Why is the evidence being released before trial?] In the video, Bowman takes several sobriety tests. Then he's arrested. On the tape, Bowman admits to taking two Ambien.

But on the tape, Bowman also admits to drinking that night. Bowman told KXAN that's the Ambien talking.

He is the first person in Travis County to claim that as a defense and wants his DWI charge dropped. Fired from his pharmaceutical job, this father of two says his livelihood depends on it.

"I will never take it again," Bowman said.

Bowman says Wednesday he was contacted by a Dallas law firm to testify on a class action suit against the makers of Ambien. [Is that ethical?]

His DWI case is going to a jury trial in November.

This dude is a pharm rep? He should know better.

I hear pharm reps have the best drugs.

I had an appeal a couple of years ago with this claim. The defense was that the guy drove for about 20 miles in rush hour traffic while unconscious.

Nelson v. State, 149 S.W.3d 206 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2004, no pet.)

I saw part of a sex assault trial a few years ago, The Defense attorney gave a long very very dramatic closing about how the King of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta on a hillside in England around a bunch of torches and this gave us some very inportant rights.

And for some reason, (he never really explained why) if the jury found his client guilty they would be spitting on these rights and giving them back to the King.

I rember felling violently ill and uncomfortable the whole time he talked (though nothing was physically wrong with me).

Jury found him guilty, evidently they felt there should be some reason this was spiiting on these right as well.

Whitney tried the case and can probabbly explain it better than I did.

Not exactly a defense, but interesting denial of lying. Defendant changed his last name from "jones" to "smith" (changed to protect the guilty!) when he was older. Prosecutor trying to show his lack of credibility asks him about an application where he denied ever being convicted of a felony before. He didn't lie, Mr. Jones was convicted of the felony, not him Mr. Smith. Yet he admitted that he had been convicted of the prior felony as Mr. Jones when confronted with his pen packet.

Once as a Defense Attorney I was appointed to represent a guy on a DWI. He had blown about a 0.16 (back when the limit was 0.10), and done poorly on the FSTs to boot (no video back then).

The most striking thing about this guy was his skin -- he looked like the "before" picture in an ad for some miracle prescription drug for eczema. He had scaly patches and sores all over, including on his ears, and he swore to me that he did poorly on the FSTs, not because of the few beers he had consumed, but because he was dizzy, because he had packed his ears with a skin salve prescribed by his dermatologist. He further complained that he knew he had other ear trouble because when he packed salve in his ears it melted and ran down into his throat, where he could taste it.

Of course he had no medical history of ear trouble, despite seeing doctors regularly, and I told him that dizziness would not explain a 0.16, and he had neglected to mention any ear trouble during the stop, during the FSTs, or during the DWI interview. None the less, he insisted on a jury trial.

He brought the salve container in before trial, and I looked it over, as much to humor him as anything. One ingredient, in the salve my client said melted and ran into his throat, was alcohol!

The State's arresting officer remembered few details, and the DPS Chemist confidentially testified that any mechanism, other than drinking, that introduced alcohol directly into the suspects throat, when he was providing a breath specimen, invalidated the Intoxilyzer results. My client testified as to his skin condition, told his sad tale of packing too much salve into his ears, and how awful it tasted when it melted and ran into his throat. The salve container was admitted into evidence, and I waited until closing arguments to point out how one ingredient was alcohol, and to remind the jury that the DPS chemist had stated that alcohol introduced into the throat invalidated the Intoxilyzer results.

And that is how the "too much eczema salve in the ears" defense came to be.

Here is a doctor's explanation for how his semen was found on a patient's face:

In the lawsuit deposition, Dr. Chitale said the evidence in Mrs. Simpson's case was caused accidentally. He said he was moving around a lot during her procedure, causing his pelvic region to rub up against the stretcher.

When he felt something wet in his pants, he put his hand in his pants to check what it was. He then wiped his hand with gauze before tapping Mrs. Simpson's cheek with the same hand to make sure she was waking up.

Molester Blames Wife's Bingo Habit

Molester blames wife's bingo habit
POSTED: 8:39 a.m. EST, December 4, 2006
Adjust font size:
EASTON, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A man who pleaded guilty to molesting two girls told a judge he did it because of his wife's excessive bingo playing.

"My wife was never home," Floyd Kinney Jr. said during his plea hearing Friday.

Kinney's explanation did not sit well with Northampton County Judge F.P. Kimberly McFadden,

"Some people, when their wives are not home, decide to do other things, like clean their living rooms," McFadden said. "Your behavior is beyond the pale."

Kinney, 49, said his wife would sometimes argue with him over money and that he was angry she was spending too much on bingo.

"She would be going to bingo three, four times a week. I told her to stop going to bingo, and she said, 'If they had bingo every day, I'd go every day,"' he said.

Records say Kinney molested one of the girls, now 26, from 1992-97. He sexually assaulted the second girl, now 17, for a year beginning in January 2005, records show.

Kinney pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated indecent assault. The felony charges carry a combined maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

Defense attorney Richard Yetter said his client was not articulate and may not have been doing a good job of conveying his rationale to the judge.

But McFadden said she found Kinney capable of explaining himself. "I think he is telling me exactly what was going on," the judge said. "His wife was not home so he was going to perpetrate on someone and he picked these two children."

That is exactly why Pennsylvania is considering a state-wide billboard campaign, directed at Bingo-philes as well as RV'ers who might be driving through the state, planning on visiting bingo halls and maybe seeking love in the shadows. Sources close to nobody, including me, say that the new billboards will inform and advise, to: "B - 17."

A.P. - you're hilarilous!!!

I just finished a case where the defendant, a habitual offender, was charged with yet another burglary. He was seen coming out of the victim's house carrying a suitcase. The police arrived and caught him two blocks away, and found gloves, a screwdriver, and a battery charger in the case. He was charged with burglary and the victim identified the suitcase and battery charger as his. He also said the defendant ate all the food from his fridge.
The defendant pled not guilty, fired a lawyer who disagreed with him, and we were set for trial. He told the judge he would only take a criminal trespass because, "All the stuff was mine, except the suitcase. I stole that the night before from a car by smashing the window in." He stuck to that logical story for three months.
Then, five minutes before the jury walked in, he wanted to plead the case out. I probably shouldn't have let him, but I did.

Pitonyak's attorney says client shot woman
Defendant did not do it intentionally, his lawyer says.

By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, January 23, 2007

An attorney for murder suspect Colton Pitonyak said during opening statements this morning that his client killed 21-year-old Jennifer Cave, but that he did not do it on purpose.

Samuel Bassett told the Travis County jury that the case "isn't going to be a whodunit," and for the first time since Pitonyak was arrested in 2005, Bassett said Pitonyak acknowledged that he shot Cave.

"Colton is going to tell you he caused the death of Jennifer," Bassett said. "He's also going to tell you there is no reason in the world he would have done that intentionally or knowingly killed Jennifer. They were friends."

The pair had gone out in the Sixth Street entertainment district on Aug. 16, 2005, and left around midnight. They were using drugs and drinking, Bassett said, and Pitonyak doesn't remember parts of the night.

Bassett did not describe the circumstances that led up to Pitonyak shooting Cave, who had just landed a job as an Austin legal secretary.

Cave was found fatally shot, her head and hands cut off, in Pitonyak's bathtub later the next day. By that time, Pitonyak had fled for Mexico with Laura Hall, who is charged with hindering apprehension in the case.

Cave's mother, Sharon Cave, shook her head repeatedly as Bassett described Pitonyak's rampant drug and alcohol use and said that Pitonyak wouldn't have intentionally killed his friend. Prosecutors said that shortly after Cave was killed, Pitonyak went to a friend's apartment with a gun and blood on his arm, and told the friend a story about having a gunfight with Mexicans.

Prosecutor Bill Bishop said Pitonyak stayed at Nora Sullivan's apartment for a while, smoked a cigarette and had a drink before leaving.

Woman falls through ceiling while attempting to break in Nacogdoches bank
By JOHNNY JOHNSON
The Daily Sentinel
Thursday, February 08, 2007
NACOGDOCHES � When a woman decided to drop in unexpectedly after hours at BankcorpSouth Wednesday, no one was more surprised than BankcorpSouth President Stan Sisco.

In all of his 30 years of banking, Sisco said he has never seen anything like what he saw Wednesday evening, when a young woman fell through his roof, landed on the lobby floor and then immediately popped up, assuming the best "ta-da � I meant to do that" stance she could muster.

A woman apparently used a 15-foot ladder to make her way to a first-floor overhang on the north side of BancorpSouth and then pulled the ladder up behind her to finish the climb up to the roof of the two-story building.

Bank employees were, no doubt, surprised to see a woman fall through the ceiling tiles. And the woman, was apparently surprised to find the room still full of bank employees after the North Street bank had closed.

"I'm here to see my banker," she announced to the room, as blood pooled on the lobby floor below her injured right hand.

Man blames chewing tobacco for DUI charge


By EDWARD LEWIS elewis@timesleader.com
NANTICOKE � Could chewing tobacco make a man legally drunk?

John Daniel Drury Sr. thinks so.

Drury, who faces a drunken driving charge, told Nanticoke police that the brand of chewing tobacco he uses, Red Man Select, contains Tennessee Whiskey.

Police said Drury, 42, of Pine Street in the Hanover Section of Nanticoke, failed a series of field sobriety tests. A breath test Drury took showed an alcohol level of 0.144 percent, police said.

A person in Pennsylvania is considered legally intoxicated with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent.