The Statutory Standard: Intoxication Defense

Florida Statutes Section 775.051. Voluntary Intoxication; Not a Defense; Evidence Not Admissible for Certain Purposes

Voluntary intoxication resulting from the consumption, injection, or other use of alcohol or other controlled substance . . . is not a defense to any offense proscribed by law. Evidence of a defendant’s voluntary intoxication is not admissible to show that the defendant lacked the specific intent to commit an offense and is not admissible to show that the defendant was insane at the time of the offense, except when the consumption, injection, or use of a controlled substance . . . was pursuant to a lawful prescription issued to the defendant by a practitioner

The Statutory Standard: Compulsion

Consider the Iowa statute on duress.

Iowa Code Section 704.10. Compulsion

No act, other than an act by which one intentionally or recklessly causes physical injury to another, is a public offense if the person so acting is compelled to do so by another’s threat or menace of serious injury, provided that the person reasonably believes that such injury is imminent and can be averted only by the person doing such an act.

Maine’s de minimis statute, Maine Revised Statu­tes Annotated title 17-A, section 12, provides, in perti­nent part:

1. The court may dismiss a prosecution if, . . .  having regard to the nature of the onduct alleged and the nature of the attendant circumstances, it finds the defendant’s conduct:

A.  Was within a customary license or tolerance, which was not expressly refused by the person whose interest was infringed and which is not inconsistent with the purpose of the law defining the crime; or

B. Did not actually cause or threaten the harm sought to be prevented by the law defining the crime or did so only to an extent too trivial to warrant the condemnation of conviction; or

C. Presents such other extenuations that it cannot reasonably be regarded as envisaged by the Legislature in defining the crime.