60
Ginsburg, J., concurring in judgment
Constitution than are the laws, with no significant difference in wording, upheld in sister States.1 The Montana Supreme Court did not disagree with the courts of other States; it simply did not undertake an analysis in line with the principle that legislative enactments plainly capable of a constitutional construction ordinarily should be given that construction. See Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575 (1988); State v. Lilburn, 265 Mont. 258, 266, 875 P. 2d 1036, 1041 (1994).
The Montana Supreme Court's judgment, in sum, strikes down a statute whose text displays no constitutional infirmity. If the Montana court considered its analysis forced by this Court's precedent,2 it is proper for this Court to say
1 Justice Breyer questions the States' authority to treat voluntarily intoxicated and sober defendants as equally culpable for their actions. See post, at 80. He asks, moreover, post, at 79-80, why a legislature concerned with the high incidence of crime committed by individuals in an alcohol-impaired condition would choose the course Montana and several other States have taken. It would be more sensible, he suggests, to "equate voluntary intoxication [with] knowledge, and purpose," post, at 80, thus dispensing entirely with the mens rea requirement when individuals act under the influence of a judgment-impairing substance. It does not seem to me strange, however, that States have resisted such a catchall approach and have enacted, instead, a measure less sweeping, one that retains a mens rea requirement, but "define[s] culpable mental state so as to give voluntary intoxication no exculpatory relevance." See post, at 75 (Souter, J., dissenting). Nor is it at all clear to me that "a jury unaware of intoxication would likely infer knowledge or purpose" in the example Justice Breyer provides, post, at 79. It is not only in fiction, see J. Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1983) (originally published in The New Yorker in 1939), but, sadly, in real life as well, that sober people drive while daydreaming or otherwise failing to pay attention to the road.
2 The United States, as amicus curiae, so suggested at oral argument. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 20 ("[T]he State court never really got to the question of whether there has been a [substantive] change in the State law, because it [assumed] that, to the extent that there had been one, it was barred by [In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970)].").
Page: Index Previous 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007