In what circumstances will diminished capacity and diminished responsibility due to voluntary intoxication and/or mental disorder affect the doctrine of 'imperfect self-defense'?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from Christian S., In re, 10 Cal.App.4th 1325, 13 Cal.Rptr.2d 232 (Cal. App. 1992):

In 1982, Proposition 8 created Penal Code section 25, 7 which codified the electorate's clear intention to eliminate the defenses of diminished capacity and diminished responsibility due to voluntary intoxication and mental defect or disorder. In the same year, sections 28, 8 29 9 and 188 10 were amended to conform to section 25. 11 As interpreted in People v. Saille (1991) 54 Cal.3d 1103, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 364, 820 P.2d 588, those provisions bar the "reduction of what would otherwise be murder to nonstatutory voluntary manslaughter due to voluntary intoxication and/or mental disorder." (Id. at p. 1107, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 364, 820 P.2d 588.) Saille specifically declined to address the effect of these amendments upon the "so-called 'imperfect self-defense' doctrine [which reduces] an intentional killing from murder to manslaughter when a person kills under an honest but unreasonable belief in the necessity to defend against imminent peril to life or great bodily injury." (Id., fn. 1.) And, [20 Cal.App.4th 1218] in People v. Bacigalupo (1991) 1 Cal.4th 103, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 335, 820 P.2d 559 (vacated and remanded with instructions on other grounds in Bacigalupo v. California (1992) 506 U.S. 802, 113 S.Ct. 32, 121 L.Ed.2d 5), the court presumed unreasonable self-defense was still viable, although it rejected the defense in that factual setting because the underlying crime was robbery, not murder. (People v. Bacigalupo, supra, 1 Cal.4th at pp. 125-126, fn. 4, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 335, 820 P.2d 559.)

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