Is Automatism or Involuntary Intoxication a Defense to DWI?

Since the start of the new year, I’ve been meaning to return to the court of appeals’ December 2011 opinion in State v. Clowers, __  N.C. App. __ , 720 S.E.2d 430 (2011), to explore the application of the defenses of automatism and involuntary intoxication to charges of impaired driving. Two months later, I’ve finally done it. The Clowers court rejected the defendant’s argument that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury in his trial on impaired driving charges on the defense of automatism or unconsciousness, an instruction the defendant requested on the basis that he blacked out and had no memory of what happened on the night he allegedly drove while impaired. The defendant testified that it was not his habit to drink excessively.  He said that he went to a party in Raleigh around 10 p.m. on the evening before he was arrested and that he planned to stay overnight at the location of the party if he had more than a couple of drinks.  He testified that he did not remember anything after having a few drinks until “regaining consciousness” the next day while lying on a bench in a jail cell. The defendant argued that his unconsciousness could have resulted from the effects of voluntary consumption of alcohol combined with the effects of Alprazolam, a drug that he had been prescribed to control his panic attacks. The Clowers court acknowledged that unconsciousness or automatism (a defense that Jeff discussed in this earlier post) is [...]