## Facts

- Steven Lynn Brooks was camping with friends and drank large quantities of alcohol over an extended period.
- Witnesses described Brooks as very intoxicated, and he remained intoxicated the next day when he killed the victim.
- The State charged Brooks with first-degree murder under RCW 9A.32.030(1)(a), requiring proof of an intent to kill and that the intent was premeditated.
- At trial, Brooks sought to use evidence of his intoxication to show he could not form the mental state required for first-degree murder, particularly premeditation.
- The trial court permitted Brooks to argue that alcohol consumption reduced his ability to premeditate.
- The trial court refused Brooks’s proposed jury instruction that would have directed jurors to consider intoxication when deciding whether the State proved the required mental state (intent and premeditation).
- Brooks also offered testimony from a psychologist regarding the effect of intoxication on premeditation; the trial court excluded the psychologist’s opinion on premeditation.
- The jury convicted Brooks of first-degree murder.
- The Washington Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Washington Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by refusing to give a requested intoxication instruction where the record showed heavy drinking and apparent intoxication, but limited evidence of how intoxication affected Brooks’s ability to form intent or to premeditate.
2. Whether the trial court erred by excluding a defense psychologist’s opinion testimony on the element of premeditation and the effect of intoxication on that element.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.
- The court held the trial court did not err in refusing the intoxication instruction because evidence of drinking and intoxication, without evidence of its effect on the ability to form the required mental state, was not enough to require the instruction.
- The court held the trial court did not err in excluding the psychologist’s opinion on premeditation because the proffered opinion would have told the jury how to decide the ultimate question of premeditation.

## Legal Principles

- Premeditation is a mental state involving thinking beforehand, deliberation, reflection, or weighing reasons for a period of time, however short.
- Evidence of intoxication may be relevant to both intent and premeditation, but a defendant is entitled to an intoxication instruction only when there is substantial evidence that intoxication actually affected the defendant’s ability to form the specific mental state required.
- Evidence that a defendant drank heavily or appeared intoxicated does not, by itself, require an intoxication instruction; the record must support a reasonable inference of impairment of the relevant mental process.
- Expert psychological testimony may be admissible to assist the jury on psychological conditions and their general effects, but an expert may be excluded when the testimony amounts to an opinion that the legal element of premeditation was or was not met, because that determination is for the jury.

## Conclusion

In State v. Brooks, the Washington Supreme Court affirmed a first-degree murder conviction, holding that the trial court properly refused an intoxication instruction because the evidence showed drinking and intoxication but did not show that intoxication affected Brooks’s ability to form intent or premeditation, and properly excluded a psychologist’s opinion that addressed whether Brooks premeditated, a determination reserved to the jury.


State v. Brooks, 97 Wash.2d 873 (1982)