LAWS1016 Automatism

Question 1

Reflex Action Cases

Answer 1

It is for the jury to (1) identify the relevant act, and if they (2) decide if it is reasonably possible that the relevant act is a reflex action, then they are entitled (but not obliged) to find that the act was done involuntarily (Ryan).

Question 2

Sane Automatism

Answer 2

If it is reasonably possible that D is otherwise a person of “sound mind” but entered a “transient malfunction” following some kind of external physical trauma / psychological blow AND that event was of a severity which would cause the mind of an ordinary person to enter into the dissociative state, then D was acting involuntarily (Falconer).

Question 3

What does “transient malfunction” mean?

Answer 3

• Transient = not permanent, and not prone to recur.
• (Quick and Paddison) Hypoglycaemia = sane automatism, malfunctioning was not caused by D’s diabetes but by his use of insulin, an external factor, which was therefore not a disease of the mind. (can’t send diabetic to mental hospital for low blood sugar reaction when sugar is an easy remedy).

Question 4

Insane Automatism

Answer 4

If dissociative state was a response of an unsound mind to its own delusions or to external stimuli (i.e. brought about by a disease of the mind), then D is still considered to be acting voluntarily, and the issue is mental illness under the (M’Naghten) rules.

• (Bratty v Attorney General) psychomotor epilepsy “blackness came over him”, strangled girl to death. Loss of memory afterwards is never a defence in itself, so long as he was conscious at the time of the offence. Where an involuntary act results from a disease of the mind, it can only give rise to a defence of mental illness. Could not control his impulse to kill, cannot establish automatism, but may satisfy SIAM.
• (Woodbridge) although phone calls were abusive, they weren’t extraordinary enough to constitute a “psychological blow” and cause a person of a sound mind to be thrown into a dissociative state. Rather, the fact that D entered dissociative state merely because of small distress is evidence that she is of “unsound mind”, thus issue here is of insane automatism, as opposed to sane automatism.