The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 11: Excuse Me!
Excuse pg 18: Self-Induced Diminished Capacity
This defense almost always fails, because usually it’s the defendant himself who’s at fault for being in that condition in the first place.
Take Brian, for example. He got so liquored up at Luanne’s party that he blacked out. When he came to the next day, he learned that he had somehow drunkenly raped Luanne.
Montage fading to black as Brian drinks with friends, dances with others, dances drunkenly alone, collapses in chair. The fading to while as Luanne holds up her phone saying “It’s all on video, you creep!”
His intoxication certainly prevented him from knowing what he was doing, but that’s not going to be a defense, because he’s the one who got himself drunk.
Brian was drinking intentionally (or recklessly), so we’re basically applying that mens rea to whatever he did while intoxicated.