Drunkenness
A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States · John Bouvier · 1839
A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States
intoxication with strong liquor. This is an offence generally punished by local regulations, more or less severely. Although drunkenness reduces a man to a temporary insanity, it does not excuse him or palliate his offence, when he commits a crime during a fit of intoxication, and which is the immediate result of it. When the act is a remote consequence, superinduced by the antecedent drunkenness of the party, as in cases of delirtum tremens or manta a potu, the insanity excuses the act.
5 Mason’s R. 28; Amer. Jurist, vol. 3, p. 5-20; Martin & Yeager’s R. 133, 147; Dane’s Ab. Index, h. t.; 1 Russ. on Cr. 7; Ayliff’s Parerg. 231; 4 Bl. Com. 26.
Vide Habitual drunkard.