Mimi Coffey | Attorney at Law

Involuntary Intoxication Reality: Texas be Alarmed ! “I no longer knew what was real and what wasn’t. The lines between reality and delusion had become so blurred.” ― A.B. Shepherd, The Beacon This is what has happened to judges in courts across Texas when it comes to DWI charges.  The penal code was created to punish crime and thereby deter others from committing the same crime.  Most crimes involve people making bad moral choices, choices that hurt others.  Most crimes involve intent to commit the crime. The law recognizes we cannot punish people for actions they did not or could not reasonably have intended.  That is why we have defenses that include mistake of fact, mistake of law, duress, entrapment, self defense, and necessity to name a few.  Yet the defenses for being intoxicated as a victim, either because of accident or being drugged unknowingly have been soundly rejected by Texas courts.  Texas addresses intoxication, the culpability state, in penal code §8.0