Powell v. Texas (392 U.S. 514)/Concurrence White

by Byron White

United States Supreme Court

392 U.S. 514

Powell  v.  Texas (392 U.S. 514)

 Argued: March 7, 1968. --- Decided: June 17, 1968

Mr. Justice WHITE, concurring in the result.

If it cannot be a crime to have an irresistible compulsion to use narcotics, Robinson v. State of California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758, rehearing denied, 371 U.S. 905, 83 S.Ct. 202, 9 L.Ed.2d 166 (1962), I do not see how it can constitutionally be a crime to yield to such a compulsion. Punishing an addict for using drugs convicts for addiction under a different name. Distinguishing between the two crimes is like forbidding criminal conviction for being sick with flu or epilepsy but permitting punishment for running a fever or having a convulsion. Unless Robinson is to be abandoned, the use of narcotics by an addict must be beyond the reach of the criminal law. Similarly, the chronic alcoholic with an irresistible urge to consume alcohol should not be punishable for drinking or for being drunk.

Powell's conviction was for the different crime of being drunk in a public place. Thus even if Powell was compelled to drink, and so could not constitutionally be convicted for drinking, his conviction in this case can be invalidated only if there is a constitutional basis for saying that he may not be punished for being in public while drunk. The statute involved here, which aims at keeping drunks off the street for their own welfare and that of others, is not challenged on the ground that it interferes unconstitutionally with the right to frequent public places. No question is raised about applying this statute to the nonchronic drunk, who has no compulsion to drink, who need not drink to excess, and who could have arranged to do his drinking in private or, if he began drinking in public, could have removed himself at an appropriate point on the path toward complete inebriation.

The trial court said that Powell was a chronic alcoholic with a compulsion not only to drink to excess but also to frequent public places when intoxicated. Nothing in the record before the trial court supports the latter conclusion, which is contrary to common sense and to common knowledge. ^[1] The sober chronic alcoholic has no compulsion to be on the public streets; many chronic alcoholics drink at home and are never seen drunk in public. Before and after taking the first drink, and until he becomes so drunk that he loses the power to know where he is or to direct his movements, the chronic alcoholic with a home or financial resources is as capable as the nonchronic drinker of doing his drinking in private, of removing himself from public places and, since he knows or ought to know that he will become intoxicated, of making plans to avoid his being found drunk in public. For these reasons, I cannot say that the chronic alcoholic who proves his disease and a compulsion to drink is shielded from conviction when he has knowingly failed to take feasible precautions against committing a criminal act, here the act of going to or remaining in a public place. On such facts the alcoholic is like a person with smallpox, who could be convicted for being on the street but not for being ill, or, like the epileptic, who would be punished for driving a car but not for his disease. ^[2]

The fact remains that some chronic alcoholics must drink and hence must drink somewhere. ^[3] Although many chronics have homes, many others do not. For all practical purposes the public streets may be home for these unfortunates, not because their disease compels them to be there, but because, drunk or sober, they have no place else to go and no place else to be when they are drinking. This is more a function of economic station than of disease, although the disease may lead to destitution and perpetuate that condition. For some of these alcoholics I would think a showing could be made that resisting drunkenness is impossible and that avoiding public places when intoxicated is also impossible. As applied to them this statute is in effect a law which bans a single act for which they may not be convicted under the Eighth Amendment-the act of getting drunk.

It is also possible that the chronic alcoholic who begins drinking in private at some point becomes so drunk that he loses the power to control his movements and for that reason appears in public. The Eighth Amendment might also forbid conviction in such circumstances, but only on a record satisfactorily showing that it was not feasible for him to have made arrangements to prevent his being in public when drunk and that his extreme drunkenness sufficiently deprived him of his faculties on the occasion in issue.

These prerequisites to the possible invocation of the Eighth Amendment are not satisfied on the record before us. ^[4] Whether or not Powell established that he could not have resisted becoming drunk on December 19, 1966, nothing in the record indicates that he could not have done his drinking in private or that he was so inebriated at the time that he had lost control of his movements and wandered into the public street. Indeed, the evidence in the record strongly suggests that Powell could have drunk at home and made plans while sober to prevent ending up in a public place. Powell had a home and wife, and if there were reasons why he had to drink in public or be drunk there, they do not appear in the record.

Also, the only evidence bearing on Powell's condition at the time of his arrest was the testimony of the arresting officer that appellant staggered, smelled of alcohol, and was 'very drunk.' Powell testified that he had no clear recollection of the situation at the time of his arrest. His testimony about his usual condition when drunk is no substitute for evidence about his condition at the time of his arrest. Neither in the medical testimony nor elsewhere is there any indication that Powell had reached such a state of intoxication that he had lost the ability to comprehend what he was doing or where he was. For all we know from this record, Powell at the time knew precisely where he was, retained the power to stay off or leave the streets, and simply preferred to be there rather than elsewhere.

It is unnecessary to pursue at this point the further definition of the circumstances or the state of intoxication which might bar conviction of a chronic alcoholic for being drunk in a public place. For the purposes of this case, it is necessary to say only that Powell showed nothing more than that he was to some degree compelled to drink and that he was drunk at the time of his arrest. He made no showing that he was unable to stay off the streets on the night in question. ^[5]

Because Powell did not show that his conviction offended the Constitution, I concur in the judgment affirming the Travis County court.

Mr. Justice FORTAS, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, Mr. Justice BRENNAN, and Mr. Justice STEWART join, dissenting.

Notes

1. The trial court gave no reasons for its conclusion that Powell appeared in public due to 'a compulsion symptomatic of the disease of chronic alcoholism.' No facts in the record support that conclusion. The trial transcript strongly suggests that the trial judge merely adopted proposed findings put before him by Powell's counsel. The fact that those findings were of no legal relevance in the trial judge's view of the case is very significant for appraising the extent to which they represented a well-considered and well-supported judgment. For all these reasons I do not feel impelled to accept this finding, and certainly would not rest a constitutional adjudication upon it.
2. Analysis of this difficult case is not advanced by preoccupation with the label 'condition.' In Robinson the Court dealt with 'a statute which makes the 'status' of narcotic addiction a criminal offense * * *.' 370 U.S., at 666, 82 S.Ct., at 1420. By precluding criminal conviction for such a 'status' the Court was dealing with a condition brought about by acts remote in time from the application of the criminal sanctions contemplated, a condition which was relatively permanent in duration, and a condition of great magnitude and significance in terms of human behavior and values. Although the same may be said for the 'condition' of being a chronic alcoholic, it cannot be said for the mere transitory state of 'being drunk in public.' 'Being' drunk in public is not far removed in time from the acts of 'getting' drunk and 'going' into public, and it is not necessarily a state of any great duration. And, an isolated instance of 'being' drunk in public is of relatively slight importance in the life of an individual as compared with the condition of being a chronic alcoholic. If it were necesary to distinguish between 'acts' and 'conditions' for purposes of the Eighth Amendment, I would adhere to the concept of 'condition' implicit in the opinion in Robinson; I would not trivialize that concept by drawing a nonexistent line between the man who appears in public drunk and that same man five minutes later who is then 'being' drunk in public. The proper subject of inquiry is whether volitional acts brought about the 'condition' and whether those acts are sufficiently proximate to the 'condition' for it to be permissible to impose penal sanctions on the 'condition.'
3. The opinion of Mr. Justice Marshall makes clear the limitations of our present knowledge of alcoholism and the disagreements among doctors in their description and analysis of the disease. It is also true that on the record before us there is some question whether Powell possessed that degree of compulsion which alone would satisfy one of the prerequisites I deem essential to assertion of an Eighth Amendment defense. It is nowhere disputed, however, that there are chronic alcoholics whose need to consume alcohol in large quantities is so persistent and so insistent that they are truly compelled to drink. I find it unnecessary to attempt on this record to determine whether or not Powell is such an alcoholic, for in my view his attempt to claim the Eighth Amendment fails for other reasons.
4. A holding that a person establishing the requisite facts could not, because of the Eighth Amendment, be criminally punished for appearing in public while drunk would be a novel construction of that Amendment, but it would hardly have radical consequences. In the first place, when as here the crime charged was being drunk in a public place, only the compulsive chronic alcoholic would have a defense to both elements of the crime-for his drunkenness because his disease compelled him to drink and for being in a public place because the force of circumstances or excessive intoxication sufficiently deprived him of his mental and physical powers. The drinker who was not compelled to drink, on the other hand, although he might be as poorly circumstanced, equally intoxicated, and equally without his physical powers and cognitive faculties, could have avoided drinking in the first place, could have avoided drinking to excess, and need not have lost the power to manage his movements. Perhaps the heavily intoxicated, compulsive alcoholic who could not have arranged to avoid being in public places may not, consistent with the Eighth Amendment, be convicted for being drunk in a public place. However, it does not necessarily follow that it would be unconstitutional to convict him for committing crimes involving much greater risk to society.
5. I do not question the power of the State to remove a helplessly intoxicated person from a public street, although against his will, and to hold him until he has regained his powers. The person's own safety and the public interest require this much. A statute such as the one challenged in this case is constitutional insofar as it authorizes a police officer to arrest any seriously intoxicated person when he is encountered in a public place. Whether such a person may be charged and convicted for violating the statute will depend upon whether he is entitled to the protection of the Eighth Amendment.