## Facts

- Manuel De Jesus Saille drank heavily over many hours, consuming roughly 18–22 beers before late evening.
- At about 9 p.m., Saille went to Eva’s Café, appeared intoxicated, and was asked by security guard David Ballagh to leave; he complied.
- Saille returned twice and was refused entry both times; when leaving the third time, he told Ballagh, “I’m going to get a gun and kill you.”
- Around 1 a.m., Saille retrieved a semiautomatic rifle from home and returned, telling Ballagh, “I told you I would be back.”
- Ballagh attempted to seize the rifle; it discharged and killed patron Guadalupe Borba, and during the struggle both Saille and Ballagh were shot before Saille was subdued.
- Evidence indicated Saille’s blood alcohol content was about 0.19 at the time of the shooting.
- At the retrial, the court instructed that voluntary intoxication could be considered on whether Saille formed the specific intent to kill, and it instructed on first- and second-degree murder and voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, but it did not instruct that intoxication could negate malice to yield a nonstatutory voluntary manslaughter theory.
- The jury convicted Saille of first-degree murder and attempted murder; the Court of Appeal affirmed.

## Issues

1. After statutory abolition of diminished capacity and enactment of Penal Code §§ 22 and 28, may voluntary intoxication or mental disorder reduce murder to a nonstatutory form of voluntary manslaughter by negating malice.
2. Whether the trial court had a sua sponte duty to instruct that voluntary intoxication could be considered on premeditation and deliberation and/or to provide a manslaughter option based solely on intoxication.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed.
- California law does not permit reducing murder to nonstatutory voluntary manslaughter based solely on voluntary intoxication or mental disorder; that doctrine was eliminated by the 1981–1982 reforms.
- Penal Code § 22 limits voluntary intoxication evidence to whether the defendant actually formed specified mental states (e.g., specific intent, premeditation, deliberation, express malice), not to show lack of capacity or to negate malice through an extra-statutory manslaughter theory.
- The trial court committed no instructional error and had no sua sponte duty to instruct on an abolished theory of voluntary manslaughter.

## Legal Principles

- Voluntary manslaughter is confined to statutory categories; courts may not recognize a nonstatutory “diminished-capacity” voluntary manslaughter theory based on intoxication or mental disorder.
- Evidence of voluntary intoxication is admissible only to determine whether the defendant actually formed a required specific intent and, in murder cases, whether the defendant premeditated, deliberated, or harbored express malice, as defined by statute.
- “Diminished actuality” (failure in fact to form the required mental state) is distinct from “diminished capacity” (inability to form it); the latter is not a valid theory.
- A trial court has no sua sponte duty to instruct on legal theories that are not recognized under current law.

## Conclusion

The court held that post-reform California law bars using voluntary intoxication or mental disorder to reduce murder to a nonstatutory form of voluntary manslaughter by negating malice, limiting intoxication evidence to whether the defendant actually formed specified mental states under Penal Code § 22, and it found no instructional error in the convictions.


People v. Saille, 54 Cal. 3d 1103, 820 P.2d 588 (Cal. 1991)