Automatism (case law)
Encyclopedia
Automatism is a rarely used criminal defence which denies that the accused was criminally responsible for his or her actions. The term automatism was first used in the trial of Harrison-Owen in 1951, although accused persons had been exonerated on grounds of automatic behaviour before then e.g. Elizabeth Carr who was found “not guilty on the grounds of unconsciousness” in 1857 after she cut her daughter’s hand off during an episode of “epileptic vertigo” (the alienists of the time believed that one of the manifestations of epilepsy was bouts of uncontrollable behaviour, one of the causes of the stigma of epilepsy to this day). It is not a denial of the illegal act, but a denial that the illegal act is a crime because it was not committed by someone in a state where they could be held criminally responsible for their actions. Confusingly automatism is also used to describe a denial of mens rea
(better described as unconsciousness).
There are several limitations to the defence of automatism in English law . Prior fault generally excludes automatism. Intoxication generally excludes automatism, even when involuntary. Any defence that rests on insanity comes under the M'Naghten Rules. Under English law internal causes of automatism are generally judged to be insane automatism and so result in the special verdict ('not guilty by reason of insanity') rather than simple acquittal. Sleepwalking was an exception to this rule until the case of Burgess [1991] 2 QB 92.
(1992) 75 CCC (3d) 287, 302 asserted that automatism is "conceptually a subset of the voluntariness requirement." One of the main rationales of criminal law is to use the threat of punishment
as a deterrent
to future wrongdoing. But, if an individual is to be deterred, he or she must be acting under voluntary control. If something is interfering with this control, automatism may be available as an excuse. Duress is not an example of involuntary action as although the choices faced by the person under duress may be difficult, nonetheless they are still acting voluntarily. Some would describe action under duress as non-voluntary as opposed to involuntary. This distinction is emphasized by the exclusion of the defence of duress for murder. In the words of the Queensland Court of Criminal Appeal in R v Milloy (1991) 54 A Crim. R. 340, Thomas J. says at 342-343, that for automatism to succeed:
, Ryan v The Queen (1967) 121 CLR 205, the defendant entered a shop with a loaded rifle for a robbery
. In a sudden attack, the shop assistant caught the appellant by surprise, causing him by a reflex action to discharge the gun, killing the assistant instantly. The Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) requires that "murder
shall be committed where the act of the accused … causing the death charged". Barwick CJ. said at 213:
Was the firing of the gun willed so as to constitute an ‘act’ for the purposes of the murder charge? Elliot(1968) comments that 'his reaction was like the sudden movement of a tennis player retrieving a difficult shot; not accompanied by conscious planning, but certainly not involuntary'. Despite accepting that the actual discharge was involuntary, Barwick CJ. confirmed the murder conviction because ‘the act causing death’ included the general circumstances in which the gun was fired. The judge
and jury
:
In the U.S., in People v. Decina (1956) 2 NY2d 13 3, 143 the defendant was an epileptic
. While driving his car, he had an epileptic seizure and the car went out of control, killing four people. Decina was convicted of negligent homicide because he had voluntarily driven an automobile without assistance knowing that a seizure was possible, breaching Penal Law 1053 on the negligent operation of a motor vehicle.
This reasoning matches that in English law where any foreseeable loss of control is excluded from automatism. To hold otherwise would be to excuse any driver or other person engaged in an activity where public safety is an issue, from the consequences of a loss of control that occurred after losing consciousness. Only sudden and unexpected health problems avoid culpability
. In Scots law
, Cardle v Mulrainey (1992) SCCR 658 applies the general requirement for cases involving a defence based on insanity
or a comparable state, that there must be a total alienation of reason leading to a loss of self-control, to a case in which the accused claimed that he had involuntarily consumed a drug which had the effect that he knew what he was doing but was unable to refrain from acting (at 668):
In the U.S. People v Huey Newton (1970) 8 CA3d 359 holds that unconsciousness, when not self-induced say, as by voluntary intoxication, is a complete defence to a criminal act even though the defendant's acts seem very goal-oriented. The medical evidence was that "[a] gunshot wound which penetrates in a body cavity, the abdominal cavity or the thoracic cavity is very likely to produce a profound reflex shock reaction, that is quite different from a gunshot wound which penetrates only skin and muscle and it is not at all uncommon for a person shot in the abdomen to lose consciousness and go into this reflex shock condition for short periods of time up to half an hour or so." But the reflexive activity or unconsciousness need not cause physical collapse: it can exist where the subject physically acts in fact, but is not at the time conscious of acting (cf some European continental jurisdictions classify conduct resulting from automatism under the rubric of unconsciousness). In R. v. Cogdon (1950) unreported but noted in Morris, Somnambulistic Homicide: Ghosts, Spiders and North Koreans (1951) 5 Res Judicatae 29, the defendant struck her daughter on the head with an axe while sleepwalking and dreaming about North Koreans. Her movements were not voluntary, so she was acquitted. This interpretation of automatism is consistent with Lord Denning's dicta in Bratty v Attorney-General for Northern Ireland (1963) AC 386, at 409:
Situations involving hypnotism, concussion, and sleepwalking
may involve apparently deliberate and purposeful conduct. In fact this is the case for many situation where the defense of automatism is presented - spasms or reflex actions are rarely likely to been perceived as criminally liable acts. For example, the English case of R v T (1990) Crim. LR 256 offered clinical evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder
after a rape
three days earlier to explain an armed robbery which involved her stabbing her victim and reaching into the victim’s car to take her bag. Such a disorder is closely similar in effect to that of concussion caused by a physical blow. In the Canadian case of R v Rabey (1981) 54 CCC (2d) 1, 15 a young student was rejected by his great love. He responded by hitting her on the head and choking her. He claimed to have little recollection of the event and a psychiatrist testified that his mind dissociated from his body, explaining that a person in this kind of state might be capable of performing physical acts without awareness of such actions. This was judged to be insane automatism, since the provoking episode was the type that many people go through without such an extreme reaction.
As for sleepwalking itself, the Canadian case of R v Parks
(1992) 75 CCC (3d) 287 exemplifies a certain judicial willingness to regard a sleepwalker as behaving as an automaton even though he had performed apparently goal-directed acts. The accused fell asleep in his living room. A few hours later he got up and drove 23 kilometres to his in-laws' home. Still asleep, he entered the house, found a knife in the kitchen and went to the bedroom where his in-laws were sleeping. He strangled and cut his father in-law, who survived the attack. The mother in-law died from the repeated stab wounds and the brutal beating. The medical experts at trial unanimously agreed that the accused was sleepwalking and that sleepwalking was not a 'disease of mind'. The Supreme Court agreed and held that sleepwalking can negate the voluntary ingredient of the actus reus. There is widespread disagreement among forensic sleep experts that Kenneth Parks was in fact sleepwalking - it is not entirely clear the reason why the prosecution did not call its own experts on sleepwalking, one explanation being frank disbelief that the defence could succeed.
The point made in these cases is that the key component of the two categories of cases identified by Lord Denning in Bratty is an accused’s inability to control their behaviour and not the way in which loss or impairment of the conscious or deliberative functions of the mind arises. Similarly, under the Swedish
Penal Code, acts during sleep and unconsciousness, reflex movements, spasms and convulsions, as well as acts performed under physical force or hypnosis are generally not punishable. Moreover, omissions caused by sleep, weakness, physical numbness or anaesthesia are generally not blameworthy. The issue is whether the accused had the ability to control the behaviour, including taking early precautions to avoid loss of control. But, in English law, the ruling in R v Sullivan (1984) AC 156 held that, for the purposes of the M'Naghten Rules
, a disease of the mind need have no permanence, leading many academics to suggest that sleepwalkers might well be found to be suffering from a disease of the mind with internal causes unless there was clear evidence of an external causal factor. In R v Burgess
(1991) 2 WLR 1206 the Court of Appeal ruled that the defendant who wounded a woman by hitting her with a video recorder while sleepwalking, was insane under the M'Naghten Rules. Lord Lane said, "We accept that sleep is a normal condition, but the evidence in the instant case indicates that sleepwalking, and particularly violence in sleep, is not normal."
Overall, this emphasis on control rather than consciousness is supported by clinical science: see Hughlings Jackson on Automatism as Disinhibition (1998) 6 Journal of Law and Medicine 73, and Michael Coles who says at 37:
. The internal/external divide is a doctrine of English law, but not followed in Canada for example - hence Parks' acquittal.
. However, in Kingston [1994] 3 WLR 519] where a man with normally controlled paedophiliac urges succumbed to them after being drugged unknowingly for blackmail purposes; he was found still able to form the mens rea
for indecent assault
. This decision has been much criticised by jurists.
, there must be a sudden and unexpected loss of control as a result of things said or done but the accused is still capable of activity which is sufficiently directed to cause the death of another. Hence, there is insufficient loss of control to constitute automatism e.g. as in the Canadian case of Bert Thomas Stone v R (1999) http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/201/301/judgment/1999/stone/STONE.EN.wp. Provocation is only a partial defence, a concession to human frailty, and not a complete defence like automatism.
Mens rea
Mens rea is Latin for "guilty mind". In criminal law, it is viewed as one of the necessary elements of a crime. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty...
(better described as unconsciousness).
There are several limitations to the defence of automatism in English law . Prior fault generally excludes automatism. Intoxication generally excludes automatism, even when involuntary. Any defence that rests on insanity comes under the M'Naghten Rules. Under English law internal causes of automatism are generally judged to be insane automatism and so result in the special verdict ('not guilty by reason of insanity') rather than simple acquittal. Sleepwalking was an exception to this rule until the case of Burgess [1991] 2 QB 92.
Voluntariness
La Forest J. in the Canadian Supreme Court case of R v ParksR. v. Parks
R. v. Parks, [1992] 2 S.C.R. 871 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the criminal automatism defence.In an early morning in May 1987, Ken Parks drove to the house of his wife's parents. He attacked both of them with a kitchen knife, killing the mother and leaving the father seriously...
(1992) 75 CCC (3d) 287, 302 asserted that automatism is "conceptually a subset of the voluntariness requirement." One of the main rationales of criminal law is to use the threat of punishment
Punishment
Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....
as a deterrent
Deterrence (psychological)
Deterrence is a theory from behavioral psychology about preventing or controlling actions or behavior through fear of punishment or retribution...
to future wrongdoing. But, if an individual is to be deterred, he or she must be acting under voluntary control. If something is interfering with this control, automatism may be available as an excuse. Duress is not an example of involuntary action as although the choices faced by the person under duress may be difficult, nonetheless they are still acting voluntarily. Some would describe action under duress as non-voluntary as opposed to involuntary. This distinction is emphasized by the exclusion of the defence of duress for murder. In the words of the Queensland Court of Criminal Appeal in R v Milloy (1991) 54 A Crim. R. 340, Thomas J. says at 342-343, that for automatism to succeed:
- impairment of relevant capacities as distinct from total deprivation of these capacities [will not suffice] … it is fundamental to a defence of automatism that the actor has no control over his actions.
Reflex movements
One of the difficulties is defining what a voluntary action is and isn't. Words like "willed" have the same difficulty - a voluntary action is one that is willed, whatever that means. In AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Ryan v The Queen (1967) 121 CLR 205, the defendant entered a shop with a loaded rifle for a robbery
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
. In a sudden attack, the shop assistant caught the appellant by surprise, causing him by a reflex action to discharge the gun, killing the assistant instantly. The Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) requires that "murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
shall be committed where the act of the accused … causing the death charged". Barwick CJ. said at 213:
- That a crime cannot be committed except by an act or omission is axiomatic. It is basic, in my opinion, that the ‘act’ of an accused … must be a ‘willed’, a voluntary act which has caused the death charged. It is the act which must be willed, though its consequences may not be intended.
Was the firing of the gun willed so as to constitute an ‘act’ for the purposes of the murder charge? Elliot(1968) comments that 'his reaction was like the sudden movement of a tennis player retrieving a difficult shot; not accompanied by conscious planning, but certainly not involuntary'. Despite accepting that the actual discharge was involuntary, Barwick CJ. confirmed the murder conviction because ‘the act causing death’ included the general circumstances in which the gun was fired. The judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
and jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
:
- could have concluded that the act causing death was the presentation of the cocked, loaded gun with the safety catch unapplied and that its involuntary discharge was a likelihood which ought to have been in the contemplation of the applicant when presenting the gun in the circumstances.
In the U.S., in People v. Decina (1956) 2 NY2d 13 3, 143 the defendant was an epileptic
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
. While driving his car, he had an epileptic seizure and the car went out of control, killing four people. Decina was convicted of negligent homicide because he had voluntarily driven an automobile without assistance knowing that a seizure was possible, breaching Penal Law 1053 on the negligent operation of a motor vehicle.
- Even though a reflex or a convulsion is an excuse, the actor in this instance cannot use this defence because he knowingly undertook the risk of driving while suffering from a disease that is characterised by frequent convulsions, etc. The actus reus was established when he began driving. The same applies when a diabetic who knows he is prone to sudden onset of hypoglycaemia without warning (hypoglycaemic unawareness) gets behind the wheel of a car.
This reasoning matches that in English law where any foreseeable loss of control is excluded from automatism. To hold otherwise would be to excuse any driver or other person engaged in an activity where public safety is an issue, from the consequences of a loss of control that occurred after losing consciousness. Only sudden and unexpected health problems avoid culpability
Culpability
Culpability descends from the Latin concept of fault . The concept of culpability is intimately tied up with notions of agency, freedom and free will...
. In Scots law
Scots law
Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is considered a hybrid or mixed legal system as it traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. With English law and Northern Irish law it forms the legal system of the United Kingdom; it shares with the two other systems some...
, Cardle v Mulrainey (1992) SCCR 658 applies the general requirement for cases involving a defence based on insanity
Insanity defence
In criminal trials, the insanity defense is where the defendant claims that he or she was not responsible for his or her actions due to mental health problems . The exemption of the insane from full criminal punishment dates back to at least the Code of Hammurabi. There are different views of the...
or a comparable state, that there must be a total alienation of reason leading to a loss of self-control, to a case in which the accused claimed that he had involuntarily consumed a drug which had the effect that he knew what he was doing but was unable to refrain from acting (at 668):
- Where, as in the present case, the accused knew what he was doing and was aware of the nature and quality of his acts and that what he was doing was wrong, he cannot be said to be suffering from the total alienation of reason in regard to the crime with which he is charged which the defence requires. The sheriff found in finding that the respondent's ability to reason the consequences of his actions to himself was affected by his ingestion of the drug. The finding narrates that he was unable to take account in his actions of the fact that they were criminal in character and to refrain for them. But this inability to exert self-control, which the sheriff has described as an inability to complete the reasoning process, must be distinguished from the essential requirement that there should be total alienation of the accused's mental faculties of reasoning and of understanding what he is doing.
Sleep
Australian Model Criminal Code Committee state the law as follows (at 14-15):- At the minimum there needs to be some operation of the will before a physical movement is described as an act. The physical movements of a person who is asleep, for example, probably should not be regarded as acts at all, and certainly should not be regarded as acts for the purposes of criminal responsibility. These propositions are embodied in the rule that people are not held responsible for involuntary ‘acts’, that is, physical movements which occur without there being any will to perform that act. This situation is usually referred to as automatism.
In the U.S. People v Huey Newton (1970) 8 CA3d 359 holds that unconsciousness, when not self-induced say, as by voluntary intoxication, is a complete defence to a criminal act even though the defendant's acts seem very goal-oriented. The medical evidence was that "[a] gunshot wound which penetrates in a body cavity, the abdominal cavity or the thoracic cavity is very likely to produce a profound reflex shock reaction, that is quite different from a gunshot wound which penetrates only skin and muscle and it is not at all uncommon for a person shot in the abdomen to lose consciousness and go into this reflex shock condition for short periods of time up to half an hour or so." But the reflexive activity or unconsciousness need not cause physical collapse: it can exist where the subject physically acts in fact, but is not at the time conscious of acting (cf some European continental jurisdictions classify conduct resulting from automatism under the rubric of unconsciousness). In R. v. Cogdon (1950) unreported but noted in Morris, Somnambulistic Homicide: Ghosts, Spiders and North Koreans (1951) 5 Res Judicatae 29, the defendant struck her daughter on the head with an axe while sleepwalking and dreaming about North Koreans. Her movements were not voluntary, so she was acquitted. This interpretation of automatism is consistent with Lord Denning's dicta in Bratty v Attorney-General for Northern Ireland (1963) AC 386, at 409:
- No act is punishable if it is done involuntarily: and an involuntary act in this context – some people nowadays prefer to speak of it as ‘automatism’ – means an act which is done by the muscles without any control by the mind, such as a spasm, a reflex action or a convulsion; or an act done by a person who is not conscious of what he is doing, such as an act done whilst suffering from a concussion or whilst sleepwalking.
Situations involving hypnotism, concussion, and sleepwalking
Sleepwalking
Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulism, is a sleep disorder belonging to the parasomnia family. Sleepwalkers arise from the slow wave sleep stage in a state of low consciousness and perform activities that are usually performed during a state of full consciousness...
may involve apparently deliberate and purposeful conduct. In fact this is the case for many situation where the defense of automatism is presented - spasms or reflex actions are rarely likely to been perceived as criminally liable acts. For example, the English case of R v T (1990) Crim. LR 256 offered clinical evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Posttraumaticstress disorder is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity,...
after a rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
three days earlier to explain an armed robbery which involved her stabbing her victim and reaching into the victim’s car to take her bag. Such a disorder is closely similar in effect to that of concussion caused by a physical blow. In the Canadian case of R v Rabey (1981) 54 CCC (2d) 1, 15 a young student was rejected by his great love. He responded by hitting her on the head and choking her. He claimed to have little recollection of the event and a psychiatrist testified that his mind dissociated from his body, explaining that a person in this kind of state might be capable of performing physical acts without awareness of such actions. This was judged to be insane automatism, since the provoking episode was the type that many people go through without such an extreme reaction.
As for sleepwalking itself, the Canadian case of R v Parks
R. v. Parks
R. v. Parks, [1992] 2 S.C.R. 871 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the criminal automatism defence.In an early morning in May 1987, Ken Parks drove to the house of his wife's parents. He attacked both of them with a kitchen knife, killing the mother and leaving the father seriously...
(1992) 75 CCC (3d) 287 exemplifies a certain judicial willingness to regard a sleepwalker as behaving as an automaton even though he had performed apparently goal-directed acts. The accused fell asleep in his living room. A few hours later he got up and drove 23 kilometres to his in-laws' home. Still asleep, he entered the house, found a knife in the kitchen and went to the bedroom where his in-laws were sleeping. He strangled and cut his father in-law, who survived the attack. The mother in-law died from the repeated stab wounds and the brutal beating. The medical experts at trial unanimously agreed that the accused was sleepwalking and that sleepwalking was not a 'disease of mind'. The Supreme Court agreed and held that sleepwalking can negate the voluntary ingredient of the actus reus. There is widespread disagreement among forensic sleep experts that Kenneth Parks was in fact sleepwalking - it is not entirely clear the reason why the prosecution did not call its own experts on sleepwalking, one explanation being frank disbelief that the defence could succeed.
The point made in these cases is that the key component of the two categories of cases identified by Lord Denning in Bratty is an accused’s inability to control their behaviour and not the way in which loss or impairment of the conscious or deliberative functions of the mind arises. Similarly, under the Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
Penal Code, acts during sleep and unconsciousness, reflex movements, spasms and convulsions, as well as acts performed under physical force or hypnosis are generally not punishable. Moreover, omissions caused by sleep, weakness, physical numbness or anaesthesia are generally not blameworthy. The issue is whether the accused had the ability to control the behaviour, including taking early precautions to avoid loss of control. But, in English law, the ruling in R v Sullivan (1984) AC 156 held that, for the purposes of the M'Naghten Rules
M'Naghten Rules
The M'Naghten rules were a reaction to the acquittal of Daniel McNaughton. They arise from the attempted assassination of the British Prime Minister, Robert Peel, in 1843 by Daniel M'Naghten. In fact, M'Naghten fired a pistol at the back of Peel's secretary, Edward Drummond, who died five days later...
, a disease of the mind need have no permanence, leading many academics to suggest that sleepwalkers might well be found to be suffering from a disease of the mind with internal causes unless there was clear evidence of an external causal factor. In R v Burgess
R v Burgess
R v Burgess [1991] 2 QB 92 is a decision of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales that found sleepwalking as insane automatism. In a previous decision, Burgess was found not guilty by reason of insanity because his case fell under the M'Naghten Rules...
(1991) 2 WLR 1206 the Court of Appeal ruled that the defendant who wounded a woman by hitting her with a video recorder while sleepwalking, was insane under the M'Naghten Rules. Lord Lane said, "We accept that sleep is a normal condition, but the evidence in the instant case indicates that sleepwalking, and particularly violence in sleep, is not normal."
Overall, this emphasis on control rather than consciousness is supported by clinical science: see Hughlings Jackson on Automatism as Disinhibition (1998) 6 Journal of Law and Medicine 73, and Michael Coles who says at 37:
- ...on the basis of the available knowledge of human behaviour, it may be suggested that many of the crimes the courts have decided were committed in an automatistic state – that is, in the absence of conscious, volitional control, or while the mind was a total blank – actually may have occurred in a state of diminished consciousness, with the diminished consciousness resulting in the diminished conscious control of behaviour. In other words, the individual becomes disinhibited, and behaviour that the individual would otherwise be able to [contain] gains expression.
Diabetes
Diabetes is a cause of automatism - although strictly speaking it is the treatment of diabetes (causing hypoglycaemia) that causes automatism. Hyperglycaemia due to diabetes is down to the disease which is an internal cause, whereas hypoglycaemic caused by insulin or other treatment is deemed an external cause (see below). The case of Quick [1973] QB 910 is where the internal/external divide was formulated, due to a reluctance of the courts to admit someone to a special hospital at Her Majesty's pleasure for the sake of a sugar cube. Quick was a psychiatric nurse with insulin-dependent diabetes who assaulted a patient when hypoglycaemic. He had contributed to the development of this condition by not eating properly and by drinking alcohol. Nonetheless it was held that the defence should have been put to the jury. Most of the diabetes cases are driving cases, and the defence of automatism usually fails on the lack of total loss of control or prior fault.Automatism and insanity
For a discussion of the relationship between automatism and insanity and "internal" and "external" factors, see M'Naghten RulesM'Naghten Rules
The M'Naghten rules were a reaction to the acquittal of Daniel McNaughton. They arise from the attempted assassination of the British Prime Minister, Robert Peel, in 1843 by Daniel M'Naghten. In fact, M'Naghten fired a pistol at the back of Peel's secretary, Edward Drummond, who died five days later...
. The internal/external divide is a doctrine of English law, but not followed in Canada for example - hence Parks' acquittal.
Automatism and drunkenness
Voluntary intoxication is not automatism. Involuntary intoxication can constitute automatism. This was the decision in R. v Hardie[1985] 1 WLR 164], although this decision may have been the result of judicial misunderstanding of the effects of diazepamDiazepam
Diazepam , first marketed as Valium by Hoffmann-La Roche is a benzodiazepine drug. Diazepam is also marketed in Australia as Antenex. It is commonly used for treating anxiety, insomnia, seizures including status epilepticus, muscle spasms , restless legs syndrome, alcohol withdrawal,...
. However, in Kingston [1994] 3 WLR 519] where a man with normally controlled paedophiliac urges succumbed to them after being drugged unknowingly for blackmail purposes; he was found still able to form the mens rea
Mens rea
Mens rea is Latin for "guilty mind". In criminal law, it is viewed as one of the necessary elements of a crime. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty...
for indecent assault
Indecent assault
Indecent assault is an offence of aggravated assault in many jurisdictions. It is characterised as a sex crime.Indecent assault was an offence in England and Wales under sections 14 and 15 the Sexual Offences Act 1956...
. This decision has been much criticised by jurists.
Automatism and provocation
To constitute a provocationProvocation
Provocation and provoke may refer to:* Provocation , a type of legal defense in court which claims the "victim" provoked the accused's actions...
, there must be a sudden and unexpected loss of control as a result of things said or done but the accused is still capable of activity which is sufficiently directed to cause the death of another. Hence, there is insufficient loss of control to constitute automatism e.g. as in the Canadian case of Bert Thomas Stone v R (1999) http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/201/301/judgment/1999/stone/STONE.EN.wp. Provocation is only a partial defence, a concession to human frailty, and not a complete defence like automatism.