Cite as: 518 U. S. 37 (1996)
O'Connor, J., dissenting
"Early law was indifferent to the defence of drunkenness because the theory of criminal liability was then too crude and too undeveloped to admit of exceptions. . . . But with the refinement in the theory of criminal liability . . . a modification of the rigid old rule on the defence of drunkenness was to be expected." Singh, History of the Defense of Drunkenness in English Criminal Law, 49 L. Q. Rev. 528, 537 (1933) (footnote omitted). As the plurality concedes, that signifi-cant modification took place in the 19th century. Courts acknowledged the fundamental incompatibility of a particular mental-state requirement on the one hand, and the disallowance of consideration of evidence that might defeat establishment of that mental state on the other. In the slow progress typical of the common law, courts began to recognize that evidence of intoxication was properly admissible for the purpose of ascertaining whether a defendant had met the required mental-state element of the offense charged.
This recognition, courts believed, was consistent with the common-law rule that voluntary intoxication did not excuse commission of a crime; rather, an element of the crime, the requisite mental state, was not satisfied and therefore the crime had not been committed. As one influential mid-19th century case explained: "Drunkenness is no excuse for crime; yet, in that class of crimes and offences which depend upon guilty knowledge, or the coolness and deliberation with which they shall have been perpetrated, to constitute their commission . . . [drunkenness] should be submitted to the consideration of the Jury"; for, where the crime required a particular mental state, "it is proper to show any state or condition of the person that is adverse to the proper exercise of the mind" in order "[t]o rebut" the mental state or "to enable the Jury to judge rightly of the matter." Pigman v. State, 14 Ohio 555, 556-557 (1846); accord, Cline v. State, 43 Ohio St. 332, 334, 1 N. E. Rep. 22, 23 (1885) ("The rule is well settled that intoxication is not a justification or an excuse for crime. . . . But in many cases evidence of intoxication is
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