Crown files appeal over acquittal of former MRU hockey team captain of bizarre house break-ins
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The Crown has appealed the acquittal of former MRU hockey team captain Matthew Brown for nakedly breaking into two homes while high on magic mushrooms.
In her notice of appeal filed Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Deborah Alford raises five grounds of appeal, including that a pre-trial hearing judge erred in striking down legislation barring self-induced intoxication automatism as a defence in crimes of violence.
In the notice filed at the Court of Appeal in Calgary, Alford said Justice Willie deWit was wrong to find the section of the Criminal Code violated Brown’s Charter rights.
In a ruling last October, deWit found the legislation which prevented such a defence to crimes of violence didn’t comply with an earlier Supreme Court decision on the issue.
Alford also alleged trial judge Justice Michele Hollins “erred in law by making findings of fact in the absence of evidence … (and) by accepting expert witness evidence in the absence of foundational facts.”
Hollins accepted testimony from psychologist Dr. Thomas Dalby that Brown was unable to control his actions after consuming magic mushrooms at a friend’s house party.
Brown, who was attending MRU at the time, ran naked from the home after removing his clothing and taking off outside in frigid January temperatures.
He broke into the nearby home of Mount Royal professor Janet Hamnett, whom he did not know and had never had as an instructor, and violently assaulted her.
Brown fled that scene leaving Hamnett bloodied and subsequently broke into another residence, where he was arrested by police after barricading himself in a bathroom.
In acquitting him on March 3, Hollins found Brown’s consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms provided by his friend left him in a state of “extreme intoxication akin to non-insane automatism.”
On Twitter: @KMartinCourts
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