Getting Away with Murder?: Dissociative States and Criminal Responsibility

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Introduction

If an individual commits a crime when in a state of altered consciousness, should he or she be held criminally responsible and punished for the crime? Does the answer depend upon the degree of mental impairment? If such an individual is excused from criminal responsibility, should some form of treatment for the impairment be nevertheless ordered? This article explores the contrasting approaches by Canadian and Australian courts to these questions as they relate to crimes committed by individuals while in states of “dissociation.” In Canada, dissociative states are seen as falling within the defence of mental disorder, which may result in a number of dispositional options including detention in a psychiatric facility. In Australia, evidence of dissociative states generally leads to a complete acquittal.

The trials of Craig Mansfield and Dorothy Joudrie exemplify the differences in the way in which dissociation is treated in Australia and Canada. These trials will be examined in some detail to show how the present law relating to automatism is unsatisfactory. The final section of this article will then suggest an alternative approach to conditions of severely impaired consciousness that will avoid arbitrary distinctions between “sane” and “insane” automatism and the over-reliance upon the vagaries of expert psychiatric and psychological evidence in this area.

Section snippets

The Mansfield Case

In late June 1986, when he was 19, Craig Mansfield1went to a local pub in Melbourne’s western suburbs, where he met Darlene Hegarty, who had just turned 16. They started going out together and were married on 15 April, 1989. Toward the end of that year, Darlene accidentally became pregnant, and according to Craig, from “the day she fell pregnant” the marriage had “been a bit funny.” A daughter was born on 18 August, 1990.

Craig later admitted to one episode of violence toward Darlene during the

The Joudrie Case

This narrative concerns an older couple and one at the other end of the social scale from the Mansfields.5In 1950, when she was 15 and at a high school in Edmonton, Alberta, Dorothy Jonason met Earl Joudrie, who was one year her senior. They both came from working-class homes, but Earl eventually worked his way up to become the president and chief executive officer of Ashland Oil Canada and became very rich in the process. He also served as chairman for a number of businesses, such as Canadian

Dissociative States

In both trials, defence counsel raised the issue of automatism: that is, it was argued that both Craig Mansfield and Dorothy Joudrie had been in a state of “dissociation” at the time of the attacks upon their victims. Both claimed that they had no recollection of stabbing or shooting their victims.

It is only relatively recently that dissociative states have been used as a basis for automatism. Sometimes this is referred to as “psychological blow” automatism. In Canada, in the 1970s, some cases

The Trials of Craig Mansfield and Dorothy Joudrie

In the trial of Craig Mansfield, the defence called two medical witnesses, Dr. Wilks, a clinical psychologist, and the forensic psychiatrist Dr. Walton. Dr. Wilks stated that it was more probable than not that the accused was in a state of dissociation at the time of the killing. Dr. Walton agreed that there was a reasonable possibility that the accused was in a dissociative state at the time of the killing.

Dr. Bartholomew was engaged by the prosecution to give an opinion about the matter from

Sane and Insane Automatism

The M’Naghten Rules have formed the basis for the insanity defence in many jurisdictions. The best-known rule states that:

[T]o establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.27

“Automatism” refers to some

Expert Evidence and the Burden of Proof

It is clear that the evidence of the psychiatrists and psychologists called in the Mansfield and Joudrie trials was crucial in determining whether a dissociative state existed at the time of the criminal act and whether it should be considered to be a matter of sane or insane automatism.

During Mansfield’s trial, one of the expert witnesses talked about a reasonable possibility that the accused was in a dissociative state, and another spoke of the occurrence of dissociation as being more

Toward Law Reform

The Canadian Psychiatric Association has suggested that automatism be subsumed within the existing defence of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.44This suggestion was based on the view that automatism always involves some form of mental disorder.

There are two main benefits to this approach. The first is that if conditions such as dissociative states are seen as akin to other forms of mental impairment arising from mental illness, the courts will no longer have to rely on

Conclusion

The trials of Craig Mansfield and Dorothy Joudrie raise many issues relating to dissociative states and criminal responsibility. Australian courts have accepted evidence of dissociative states as “sane” automatism, whereas Canadian courts have generally viewed them as falling within the ambit of “insane” automatism. The outcome, however, will depend largely upon the medical evidence called at trial.

In order to avoid arbitrary and inconsistent outcomes of such criminal trials, it has been

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