For example, in 1958, Esther Griggs threw her child out of a first floor window believing that the house was on fire, while having a sleep terror.
[1] In 2002, Peter Buck, lead guitarist of the band R.E.M., was cleared of several charges, including assault, which resulted from automatism brought on by a bad interaction between alcohol and sleeping pills.
[3] Unconsciousness is the defence of denial of mens rea,[citation needed] which is easier to prove and hence more commonly used for non-strict liability crimes.
The use of the term "automatism" for these situations causes some confusion, as in these cases it is really the lack of intent on the part of the defendant which denies the mens rea of the offence rather than the actus reus (although this distinction is problematic in many instances), better called "unconsciousness".
The evidentiary burden was laid down in Hill v Baxter where the defence of automatism failed because there was no good evidence for the alleged blackout.
This can have significant practical effects for the defendant, as they still may be detained after a special verdict as opposed to the straight acquittal available through sane automatism.
This followed the decisions of Watmore v Jenkins[9] and Broome v Perkins[10] where diabetic drivers who had driven three miles or more were held to not have the total loss of control necessary for the defence of automatism.
Classically automatisms in the legal sense have been defined as spasms, reflexes, convulsions or acts committed in a state of unconsciousness e.g. sleep.
However, in R v Isitt,[13] when the defendant drove away from a collision and evaded a police roadblock in a dissociative state, the defence was not successful.
It was held that such a commonplace occurrence was not the sort of external stimulus that would cause legal automatism (although the insanity plea would be open to him).
Several commentators, including H. L. A. Hart,[15] have suggested that responsibility for omissions must be framed with reference to the actor's capabilities at the time, rather than the objective test.
La Forest J. in the Canadian Supreme Court case of R v Parks,[16] asserted that automatism is "conceptually a subset of the voluntariness requirement".
"[18]: p 213 Concerning whether the firing of the gun was willed so as to constitute an "act" for the purposes of the murder charge, Elliot commented 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".
[20] 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.
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.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.
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): 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.
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.The Australian Model Criminal Code Committee states 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.
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.
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 fact this is the case for many situations where the defense of automatism is presented – spasms or reflex actions are rarely likely to be perceived as criminally liable acts.
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.
However, in Kingston [1994] 3 WLR 519, 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.
To constitute a provocation, 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.