DUI Case Highlights from Paul Burglin San Francisco DUI Attorney - Missoula v. Paffhaus

 Posted on April 30, 2013 in DUI

City of Missoula v. Paffhausen
___P.3d ___, 2012 WL 5866259 (Mont.), 2012 MT 265

The State argued that involuntary intoxication (purportedly caused in this case by a rape date drug) is no defense on the basis that mental state is not an element of the DUI offense. However, the absence of consciousness excludes the possibility of a voluntary act and “automatism" caused by involuntary intoxication is a valid affirmative defense. To prevail on it, the defendant must present sufficient evidence to raise a reasonable doubt that he was involuntarily intoxicated and was acting in an unconscious state.