Latest Case: State v. Abion (Civil Rights)

American Law’s Worst Moment—2020

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College—explains why the police murder of George Floyd was the worst moment of 2020 in American law. Professor Sarat proposes that we remember the event and that date—May 25—as “infamous,” a word reserved for rare and atrocious events like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, in an attempt to capture the brutality and inhumanity of the act.

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State v. Abion

Docket: SCWC-18-0000600

Opinion Date: December 29, 2020

Judge: Sabrina S. McKenna

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the intermediate court of appeals (ICA) affirming the circuit court's judgment of conviction and sentence, holding that the district court rejected evidence which, if admitted, would have presented an essential factual issue for the trier of fact. After Defendant was arrested and charged with assault, one of the medical examiners, Dr. Martin Blinder, who examined Defendant opined that Defendant suffered from amphetamine psychosis and may be entitled to a lack of penal responsibility defense. The State filed a motion for a finding of inadmissibility seeking to preclude Dr. Blinder from testifying at trial. The circuit court prevented Dr. Blinder from testifying on the grounds that State v. Young, 999 P.2d 230 (Haw. 2000), had determined that a drug-induced mental illness was self-induced intoxication prohibited as a defense by Haw. Rev. Stat. 702-230(1). Defendant was convicted of assault second, and the ICA affirmed. The Supreme Court remanded the case for further proceedings, holding (1) the self-induced intoxication exception of section 702-230(1) applies only when a defendant is under the temporary influence of voluntarily ingested substances at the time of an act; and (2) by precluding Dr. Blinder's testimony at trial, the circuit court violated Defendant's due process right to present a complete defense.