People v. Scott

Walter Stephen Scott (defendant) attended a family reunion at which he unknowingly ingested drugs after someone was believed to have spiked the punch. He became confused and erratic and began hallucinating. Scott’s symptoms improved the next day but worsened the day after. While running errands with his mother-in-law, he imagined that a funeral procession in which he was the deceased drove past him. Scott became scared and abandoned the car, running up a freeway offramp. He came upon a teenager on a motorbike outside a gas station, told the teen he was a secret agent, and demanded that the teen give him the bike. The teen refused, so Scott pushed him. A man driving by in a truck pulled over to help, and Scott jumped into the back of the truck, shouting that he worked with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The truck driver pulled into a lumberyard, where Scott attempted to operate a forklift, announcing it was for police business. Police were eventually called. They arrested Scott, who protested on the basis that he was a federal agent. Multiple witnesses stated that Scott appeared confused and did not seem to know who he was. Scott was convicted of two counts of attempted unlawful driving or taking of a vehicle. He appealed, arguing that he did not have the specific intent to deprive the victims of their vehicles due to his diminished capacity from accidentally ingesting drugs.