Montana v. James Allen Egelhoff (518 U.S. 37)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 13, 1996 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 518 U.S. 37 · 116 S. Ct. 2013
- Decided
- June 13, 1996
- Term
- October Term 1995
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas join. We consider in this case whether the Due Process Clause is violated by Montana Code Annotated §45-2-203, which provides, in relevant part, that voluntary intoxication “may not be taken into consideration in determining the existence of a mental state which is an element of [a criminal] offense.” I In July 1992, while camping out m the Yaak region of northwestern Montana to pick mushrooms, respondent made friends with Roberta Pavola and John Christenson, who were doing the same. On Sunday, July 12, the three sold the mushrooms they had collected and spent the rest of the day and evening drinking, in bars and at a private party in Troy, Montana. Some time after 9 p.m., they left the party in Christenson’s 1974 Ford Galaxy station wagon. The drinking binge apparently continued, as respondent was seen buying beer at 9:20 p.m. and recalled “sitting on a hill or a bank passing a bottle of Black Velvet back and forth” with Christenson. 272 Mont. 114, 118, 900 P. 2d 260, 262 (1995). At about midnight that night, officers of the Lincoln County, Montana, sheriff’s department, responding to reports of a possible drunk driver, discovered Christenson’s station wagon stuck in a ditch along U. S. Highway 2. In the front seat were Pavola and…
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