“He was deprived of reason due to drunkenness”: Negotiating criminal liability for crimes committed under the effects of alcohol y late colonial Chile

Abstract

This article examines judicial records in which drunkenness and its disturbing effect on reason was used as an argument to plea for a mitigation of sentence during the 18th century in the Capitanía General de Chile. Drunkenness was conceived as a vice, passion and excess typical of the lower sorts, and was associated with incivility and lack of control. The article explains that although the judicial framework of the Spanish Monarchy conceived drunkenness as an extenuating circumstance from legal responsibility, the argument rarely was successful in mitigating penalties. It suggests that drunkenness, understood as a state temporary mental disturbance, was conceived as an illness similar to madness but not completely like it. Judicial records examined in the article show that although it was believed that this illness had begun through the voluntary act of drinking, the effects alcohol had on the mind and rational judgement were beyond one’s control, like any other effects of illness. However, given the negative and dangerous consequences of this behavior on social order, the judicial system was reluctant to accept it as a mitigating circumstance.