THIS ISSUE: Defence of Automatism
The recent New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal decision of Woodbridge v R [2010] NSWCCA 185 is an example of the courts approach to the defence of automatism.
The appellant was intoxicated when she drove into an oncoming car, killing the female passenger and severely injuring the driver.
The defence case was based on the fact that the appellant's driving on the day of the accident was not a voluntary or willed act and put forth a defence of "sane automatism".
The arguments put forth highlighted that phone calls from the appelant's ex-husband caused her to go into a dissociative state and therefore rendering her behaviour involuntary on the day of the collision.
The trial Judge did not allow the issue of sane automatism to go to the jury. This issue was argued on appeal.
The distinction between "sane automatism" and "insane automatism" is important and was highlighted in R v Radford (1985) 42 SARS 266 at 276:
· Insane automatism refers to the reaction of an unsound mind to its own delusions or to external stimuli.
· Sane automatism refers to the reaction of a sound mind to external stimuli including stress-producing factors.
The CCA held the defence psychologist in Woodbridge v R erred in the argument that the external stimuli (phone calls from the ex-husband) indicated sane automatism. This error however was not the deciding factor in the appeal being dismissed. The greater error lay in the fact that the psychologist found the appellant not to be insane and her mind not unsound. The problems with this conclusion were:
It was decided on appeal that the psychologists identified that the phone calls from the ex-husband as the main trigger for the automatism suggests that the appellant's mind was unsound rather than sound. The nature of the phone calls received from the husband were not so extraordinary and extreme to assume that a completely healthy mind would have been so affected as to react in the way in which the appellant did.
