State v. Mash

EXUM, Chief Justice.

The sole issue dispositive of this appeal is whether the trial court erroneously instructed the jury on the issue of defendant’s voluntary intoxication to defendant’s prejudice. We conclude it did and order a new trial.

I

The defendant and the state agree that in a period of minutes around 11 p.m. on 5 June 1986, the defendant beat Randall Cupp to death with a car jack. State’s evidence in the guilt phase of the trial tended to show the following:

Defendant’s friends first saw him drinking beer in the driveway of his mother’s house around 4 p.m. on 5 June. They saw him…