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on you, gentlemen.
Just as the burden of satisfying you that
Michael Pine's death was caused by the hand of the accused lies on the Crown, and just as the accused is entitled to an acquittal if the Crown has not discharged that burden, so the burden of satisfying you that there was such a degree of intoxication
as to constitute matter of palliation or excuse, lies on the
accused. It is not on the Crown to prove he was not intoxicated
to the requisite degree. It is for accused to satisfy you that he was no under the influence of alcohol that the law will excuse him.
If he fails to discharge that duty then the benefit is given to the Crown. The dice are not loaded more against one side than the
other.
The principle of law I want to explain to you as simply and
as shortly as I can.
Drunkenness, self-inflicted drunkenness, is generally speaking no excuse in law, but there is one very important exception to that principle. If intent is an essential ingredient in the offence that you are investigating, as it is in murder, because it is the intent, the intention to kill which distinguishes murder from manslaughter,
If in cases such as murder where the intent is an essential
ingredient, the accused satisfies you beyond reasonable doubt that he was so far under the influence of alcohol as to be incapable of forming the intent, then that is a matter which you are entitled
to take into consideration in assessing the degree of his blame-
worthiness. But evidence of alcoholism which falls short of
proving incapacity to form the intent, evidence which merely goes so far as to satisfy you that his mind was inflamed and influenced
by alcoholism so much that he more readily gave way to all the evil passion of a vilent intent, is no defence at all. I would
translate that into more simple language.
If you are satisfied that the accused had taken so much
alcohol that his reasoning faculties, his faculties forming a mental conclusion, had virtually gone entirely, that he did not know what he was doing, then you would be entitled to return a