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Martin: Automatism defence raises hackles

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Automatism is a state where someone commits an act without intending to do so, or without being aware of their conduct.

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In legal parlance, it is often considered where an individual’s contact with reality is impaired by a mental disorder which renders the person incapable of appreciating the nature and consequences of what they are doing.

Mental illness can sometimes be so overwhelming it causes people to commit unspeakable acts, sometimes with horrific consequences.

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Calgarian Matthew de Grood, for example, brutally killed five young adults at a house party while in such a state.

But automatism isn’t solely caused by mental illness.

Psychiatrists explaining the concept in court often use the example of a person who drives home from work and then realizing they were basically on auto-pilot and don’t really remember getting there.

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Sometimes, it’s as brief as running a stop sign and then immediately realizing you weren’t consciously paying attention to the road, they say.

Two court cases in Calgary this week illustrated there are such forms of “non-insane automatism” which can also lead to tragic consequences.

In one, a young cyclist failed to stop at a red light because he wasn’t paying attention, hitting a pedestrian and killing him.

Many Calgarians have expressed outrage that Paul Joseph MacNeil was only fined $1,000 under the Traffic Safety Act (as well as being ordered to pay a 15% victim fine surcharge) when he ran a red light and struck elderly pedestrian John Kwan.

Kwan died from his injuries three days after the July 16, 2018 collision.

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John Kwan, 75, was struck by cyclist Paul Joseph MacNeil at Richmond Road S.W. near Crowchild Trail on July 16, 2018. He died from his injuries three days later.
John Kwan, 75, was struck by cyclist Paul Joseph MacNeil at Richmond Road S.W. near Crowchild Trail on July 16, 2018. He died from his injuries three days later.

While horribly tragic for the victim’s family, the reality is MacNeil could not be held criminally responsible because there was no evidence he intentionally disobeyed the traffic signal in a negligent fashion.

In effect, he was in a state of automatism when he ran the red light without intending to do so, or without being aware of his conduct.

For whatever reason, MacNeil’s mind was not on the task of riding his bicycle and he committed an act without intention or awareness.

More controversially, another young Calgarian, Matthew Brown, was acquitted on charges he broke into two southwest homes, in one instance brutally assaulting its female occupant, who coincidentally was a professor at the university he attended.

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At the time Brown, a former captain on the Mount Royal University hockey team, was in a state of extreme, self-induced intoxication “akin to non-insane automatism” after consuming about four grams of magic mushrooms.

When in the early morning hours of Jan. 13, 2018, Brown broke into the home of professor Janet Hamnett, whom he had never previously met, and attacked her with a broken broom handle, the Criminal Code said he could not rely on self-induced intoxication as a defence.

But in a pre-trial Charter challenge his lawyer, Sean Fagan, successfully argued the section of the act prohibiting such a defence in crimes of violence was unconstitutional.

Therefore it was up to Brown to prove the effect of the magic mushrooms put him in such a mental state that he acted involuntarily and without awareness of his actions when he assaulted Hamnett.

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Matthew Brown, a former Mount Royal University hockey captain.
Matthew Brown, a former Mount Royal University hockey captain. Photo by Kevin Martin/Postmedia

Based on the facts of the case, that Brown, who had no prior history of criminal behaviour or violence, stripped naked at a house party after consuming the drugs and ran out into the street in minus-20 C temperatures, Justice Michele Hollins ruled his self-induced intoxication prevented him from appreciating what he was doing was wrong.

Dr. Thomas Dalby, a psychologist, said it was “absurd” to suggest Brown intended to attack Hamnett after breaking into her home “naked and screaming like an animal,” before fleeing and smashing his way into another residence.

The doctor said the only rational conclusion was that Brown was in a state of delirium at the time.

Whether Brown’s self-induced automatism defence withstands an appeal will be for another court to decide.

KMartin@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @KMartinCourts

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