Automatism case law: Encyclopedia II - Automatism case law - Sleep

Automatism case law - Sleep

Australian Model Criminal Code Committee state the law as follows (at 14-15):

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. Newton did not have the ability to monitor himself because of trauma. 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 than 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 dictum in Bratty v Attorney-General for Northern Ireland (1963) AC 386, at 409:

Denning provides two classes of cases which he regards as being automatistic:

1. an absence of any control of the mind over actions. This category covers actors who may have been conscious of what they were doing but who could not affect their actions, e.g. in driving cases where a mechanical failure or road conditions deprive the driver of control (e.g. the Canadian case of R v Lucki (1955) 17 W.W. R. 446 (Sask. Pol. Ct.)).
2. a lack of consciousness.

But situations involving hypnotism, concussion, and sleepwalking may involve apparently apparently deliberate and purposeful conduct. 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. Dissociation can be a part of a mental disorder like in multiple personality disorder. As a result, the defence of automatism may be available for a mentally impaired defendant. 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 unanimously agreed that the accused was sleepwalking and that a person in this state of mind cannot perform voluntary acts. The Supreme Court agreed and held that sleepwalking can negate the voluntary ingredient of the actus reus. 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:

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Sleep", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki