Intoxication and Automatism

Difference between Intoxication and Automatism

Intoxication is voluntary

Automatism is involuntary intoxication

Intoxication

Can be brought about by the consumption of alcohol or drugs, or a combination of both.

It can be induced by drugs that can be acquired lawfully as well as proscribed drugs

Voluntary Intoxication

Scots law does not accept voluntary intoxication as a defence to any charge.

Scots law does not recognise any defence based upon the argument that self-induced intoxication has resulted in the absence of the mens rea.

What a re the 2 key pieces of legislation on voluntary legislation

Brennan v HM Advocate 1977 JC 38

Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010

Brennan v HM Advocate 1977 JC 38 

The accused was found guilty of murdering his father by stabbing him repeatedly. This was despite the fact that he had voluntarily consumed between 20 and 25 pints of beer, a glass of sherry and a quantity of LSD before he did so.

The approach Scots law take to extreme voluntary intoxication is to treat it as an act of recklessness.

The court ruled that voluntary intoxication is no defence to crimes requiring basic intent (e.g. assault, breach of the peace).  

Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 

s 26 Intoxication (voluntary)  

1. Subsection (2) applies in relation to an offender who was, at the time of the offence, under the influence of alcohol as a result of having voluntarily consumed alcohol. 

2. A court, in sentencing the offender in respect of the offence, must not take the fact into account by way of mitigation. 

Involuntary Intoxication

The accused is entitled to an acquittal only if the effects of the intoxicant were to induced a semi-conscious state.

One might imagine that the courts would simply find such people “not guilty”; someone who is in a semi-conscious state is, almost by definition, unable to form the mens rea which is necessary for conviction.

The difficulty with acquitting in cases of automatism is that the criminal courts can only impose controls over an accused person’s future conducts if there is first a conviction.

Automatism definition

Used to described a person who is not fully conscious.

Automatism as a defence

Concerned with involuntary actions - actions where, although the accused was the agent who carried them out, it is recognised that it would have been impossible for her to have avoided doing so.

The absence of fault on the part of the accused in relation to the occurrence of the condition which made it impossible for her to avoid commission of the crime.

In practice, the defence has most commonly been pled where an accused’s alcoholic drink has been ‘spiked’ with drugs

Automatism requirements

• The accused was in a state of automatism
• This had been caused by an external factor
• That factor was not reasonably foreseeable, nor self-induced
• The condition was unlikely to recur

Ross v HM Advocate 1991 JC 210 

The accused had a diagnosed mental illness.

The court held that diminished responsibility reduces murder to culpable homicide if the accused’s mental impairment substantially impaired rationality. 

Recognised diminished responsibility as a partial defence to murder.

External Factors of automatism

Something which the accused inhaled, consumed or ingested involuntarily. Other possibilities include an anaesthetic administered for a therapeutic purpose, or a blow to the head.

Internal Factors of automatism

It is possible that a factor internal to an accused might cause her to act criminally in circumstances which she cannot really control but where her mental state falls short of mental disorder.

Includes: hypoglycaemic states arising from diabetes, and epileptic fits.

Internal Factors of automatism - General Rule

Any mental or pathological condition short of insanity - any question of diminished responsibility owing to any cause, which does not involve insanity - is relevant only to the question of mitigating circumstances and sentence.