Driving While Intoxicated Case Law Update - Texas District ...

y returning to the scene after the police arrived thus, while expressly declining to rule on whether
necessify was initially implicated, this defense was not established regarding defendant's
subsequent conduct as a matter of law.
Moncivais v. State , 2002WL 1445200 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 2002, no pet.) (Not designated for
publication).
Defendant was victim of continued assau/f and got into her vehicle and drove to escape her
attacker. Defendant held not to be entitled to necessity instruction because did not admit she was
intoxicated on night of offense.
Torres v. State, 2000 WL34251147 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi2000, no pet. (Not designated for
publication).
An lntoxication Manslaughter case. Held necessity defense nof rarse d because defendant's belief
that she needed to drive while intoxicated from coasf fo San Antonio after being in a fight with a
friend/police officer was not objectively reasonable. The Court held that even though defendant
feared the person who assaulted her "might"follow her; the factthaf she sfopped at a convenience
store in Victoria for gas and made a telephone call and did nof see Dunaway following her at any
time; she intended on traveling all the way back fo San Antonio; she made no attempt to contact
any police officer outside of Point Comfort; and she made no attempt to stop anywhere to spend
the night, even though she knew she was intoxicated, led Court to conclude this situation did not
involve imminent harm.
Bjornson v. State,1996 WL 627374 (Tex.App.-Austin 1996, no pet.) (Not designated for
publication).
Necessdydefense not raised because defendant's belief that he needed to drive while intoxicated
to lookfor his mrssrng asthmatic five-year-old was not objectively reasonable.
C. INVOLUNTARYINTOXICATION
DEFENSE/INSTRUCTION
Spence v. State, 2009 WL 3720179 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2009, pet ref'd) (Not designated for
publication).
In the bench trial of this case, the defendant admifted to having a small amount to drink but said
she thought someone must have drugged her as the amount she consumed was rnconsistent with
the observed intoxichtion at the time of the stop. Testimony was put on of another young woman
who was drugged and assaulted at that same establishment, but no evidence beyond fhe suspecf
assumption was offered to support that something was put in her drink. ln supporting the
conviction in spite of the trial court's finding at the time of the conviction that the driver's intoxication
was "involtJntary,"the Court of Appeals held this was not a finding of an involuntary act and did not
support a defense to DWl. Srnce involuntary intoxication was not a defense to DWI and the trial
court upheld the conviction, it is plain that the court did not intend to find that she was intoxicated
as fhe result of an involuntary act. Moreover, the record supported the finding that the intoxication
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