Cite as: 518 U. S. 37 (1996)
Souter, J., dissenting
(1937), must still pass muster as rational in today's world. Cf. Medina v. California, 505 U. S. 437, 454 (1992) (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (although "historical pedigree can give a procedural practice a presumption of constitutionality . . . , the presumption must surely be rebuttable").
In this case, the second step of the due process enquiry leads to a line of precedent discussed in Justice O'Connor's dissent, ante, at 61-68, involving the right to present a defense. See, e. g., Washington v. Texas, 388 U. S. 14, 22 (1967) (a State cannot arbitrarily bar "whole categories of defense witnesses from testifying"); id., at 25 (Harlan, J., concurring in result) (State may not "recogniz[e] [testimony as] relevant and competent [but] arbitrarily ba[r] its use by the defendant"); Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284, 294 (1973) (defendant entitled to a "fair opportunity to defend against the State's accusations"); Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 683, 690 (1986) (States may not exclude "competent, reliable evidence" that is "central to the defendant's claim of innocence" absent an adequate justification). Collectively, these cases stand for the proposition, as the Court put it in Chambers, supra, at 295, that while the right to present relevant evidence may be limited, the Constitution "requires that the competing interest [said to justify the limitation] be closely examined."
II
Given the foregoing line of authority, Montana had at least one way to give effect to its judgment that defendants should not be permitted to use evidence of their voluntary intoxication to defeat proof of culpable mental state, and perhaps a second. First, it could have defined culpable mental state so as to give voluntary intoxication no exculpatory relevance. While the Due Process Clause requires the government to prove the existence of every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970), within fairly broad limits the definition of those elements is up to the State. We thus noted in Patterson v. New York,
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