CW de Villiers Attorney-General for the Crown, argued that the jury was not entitled to go into the question of the responsibility of the accused; they must determine only the facts. According to Roman Dutch Law, drunkenness is no defence to a crime; it can only mitigate the punishment. If a person commits a crime when he is dead drunk, in a state of "smoor dronkenschap", then not the ordinary punishment, but an extraordinary punishment, can be imposed. The English rule was originally the same as South Africa's. Barry replied. The TPD held, on a point of law reserved, that the finding of the jury amounted to a verdict of guilty:  If we admit the proposition that absolute drunkenness must be regarded as equivalent to insanity, we are logically driven to the conclusion that absolute drunkenness excuses a person from crime. Is it true that absolute drunkenness is equivalent to insanity? I submit not. The essential difference between a drunken person and one who is insane is that the former as a rule voluntarily induces his condition, whilst the latter is, as a rule, the victim of disease. It is therefore not unreasonable to consider that the person who voluntarily becomes drunk is responsible for all such acts as flow from his having taken an excess of liquor. It may conflict with our doctrine that a man who does an act when unconscious does so without "mens rea", but, according to our law, logic has here to give way to expediency, because, in practice, to allow drunkenness to be pleaded as an excuse would lead to a state of affairs repulsive to the community. It would follow that the regular drunkard would be more immune from punishment than the sober man. This was in the mind of Damhouder when he said that drunkenness does not excuse because otherwise men would plead their own wrongdoing in excuse for their crimes. That was Wessels J. The other two judges agreed. "I think," wrote Gregorowski J, "when [a] man commits a crime under the influence of liquor, he has to take the consequences, even if there were every reason to think that if he were sober he would have restrained himself."