Law



Memorandum

From: Jose D. Velez

Date: November 5th, 2012.

Facts

Joe was fired from his boss, Jerry, and in Joe's anger chose to go to a local bar to drink his sorrows away in order to gain the courage to kill Jerry. After drinking 4 pints of beer Joe then went to a local store to buy the knife, which he later used to kill Jerry.

Issue

Under the case law of Virginia, an intentional murder has been done but in the condition of being drunk. But, the issue that arises that either the muder has been considered as a deliberated, willful, and premediated act or an act of unconconciousness because of being intoxicated.

Rule

Under the Virginia rules, first-degree murder is punishable when the defendant acts in “any willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing.” Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-32.

In Longley v. Commonwealth, 99 Va. 807 (Va. 1900) the defendant Edmund Longley killed Mr. Broiles while Mr. Longley was voluntarily under the influence of liquor.

The court ruled against Mr. Longley because it said, “intoxication so produced in law no excuse for the act done by Longley, unless they believe from the evidence that such intoxication was such as did in fact deprive him at the time of the killing of the mental capacity to form a malicious purpose to kill” In the case of Longley the court ruled that if Longley would of committed the murder in a willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated way Mr. Longley should have been convicted of murder in the first degree.

In this case Mr. Longley was convicted of second-degree murder because the burden was on the Commonwealth of Virginia to prove that his intoxication deprived him from forming a malicious purpose kill in which Virginia failed to produce. In Virginia all murder is presumed to be murder in the second degree and the burden is on the Commonwealth to elevate it to the murder of the first degree.

Additionally in Craddock v. Commonwealth, 1996 Va. App. LEXIS 553 (Va. Ct. App. Aug. 6, 1996) the defendant Omar Vincent Craddock was found guilty of first-degree murder for killing his girlfriend Cassandra Finney while he voluntarily intoxicated himself with heroin.

The court stated, “Mere intoxication from drugs or alcohol is not sufficient to negate premeditation. So as long as a defendant retains the premeditated killing, he is guilty of murder in the first degree.”

The reason the court found Mr. Craddock guilty of first-degree murder was because ...