## Facts

- Helen Torres and Robert Miranda entered Margaret Garcia’s home around 3:00 a.m. and threatened her with a gun and a knife.
- Garcia was compelled to gather valuables throughout the house and load them into her own car, which was filled with household goods.
- Torres at times held Garcia at gunpoint while Miranda moved through the house.
- Garcia was later forced to go with Torres and Miranda to a bank to cash two checks; inside the bank Garcia notified a police officer.
- Miranda fled and was wounded and arrested after an exchange of gunfire; officers found Torres about ten minutes later asleep in Garcia’s car in the bank parking lot.
- Garcia testified both intruders appeared to be “on drugs,” and Torres seemed to be falling asleep en route to the bank; Garcia also described Torres as directing Miranda at the outset.
- Miranda testified that earlier he secretly crushed four or five tablets of a sedative-type prescription drug into Torres’s drink without telling her.
- Torres requested a jury instruction on involuntary intoxication; the trial court refused, and the jury convicted her of aggravated robbery with enhancement, assessing 15 years’ imprisonment.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by refusing a requested jury instruction on involuntary intoxication when there was evidence Torres unknowingly ingested a drug placed in her drink by another person.
2. Whether voluntary consumption of a beverage can still constitute involuntary intoxication if the defendant did not know the beverage contained an intoxicant.

## Decision

- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction and remanded.
- The court held the evidence raised the defensive issue of involuntary intoxication and required submission of the requested instruction.
- The refusal to charge the jury on the defensive theory was reversible error because the jury was deprived of the opportunity to decide the factual dispute.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant is entitled to a jury instruction on a defensive issue if it is raised by any evidence, even if the evidence is weak, contradicted, or impeached.
- Involuntary intoxication may be raised when an intoxicant is administered without the defendant’s knowledge; voluntary drinking of a liquid is not “volitional” consumption of the intoxicant if the defendant was unaware of its presence.
- When evidence supports a defensive theory that could negate culpability based on lack of voluntary ingestion of the intoxicant, the jury—not the trial court—must determine credibility and weight.

## Conclusion

The conviction was reversed because evidence that Torres may have been unknowingly drugged required an involuntary-intoxication instruction, and the trial court’s refusal prevented the jury from considering that defense.


Torres v. State, 585 S.W.2d 746 (Tex. Crim. App. 1979)