Non-Insane Automatism

Non-Insane Automatism 

Non-insane automatism refers to a case in which the defendant's bodily movement is wholly involuntary—an "involuntary movement of the body or limbs". Because murder requires the prosecution to prove that the defendant had the requisite criminal intent, if the defendant acted without any consciousness or voluntary control, that criminal intent cannot be established, and the charge of murder may therefore not be made out. 

The court must first decide whether the defence has laid a sufficient evidential foundation, and then determine whether the condition amounts to insanity arising from a disease of the mind. For example, where a defendant lost control as a result of hypoglycaemia caused by taking insulin prescribed by his doctor, the Court of Appeal held that this amounted to non-insane automatism; but if the hypoglycaemia were caused by a disease of the body itself, it might be regarded as insanity. 

A state of automatism brought about by self-induced intoxication or the taking of drugs will defeat this defence. 

The Distinctions between Insanity, Non-Insane Automatism and Diminished Responsibility 

The fundamental distinction between the three lies in the degree of the mental condition and the cause of the loss of control. Both insanity and non-insane automatism result in a complete absence of criminal intent, but insanity stems from an internal disease of the mind, whereas non-insane automatism arises from an external or non-disease cause. Diminished responsibility is entirely different in nature: the defendant does not claim to have been wholly unaware of what he was doing, but admits the killing while seeking to reduce his culpability on the ground of an abnormality of mind; its scope is, moreover, confined to the offence of murder, and, if successful, reduces the offence to manslaughter.