R v Sullivan

Facts

The defendant, who had epilepsy, attacked an elderly friend while he was in the course of a seizure, kicking and injuring him. He had no recollection of the attack, and the medical evidence was that he was in a state of automatism associated with a minor epileptic seizure at the time.

History

The defendant was charged with causing grievous bodily harm. The trial judge ruled that, on the medical evidence, his defence amounted to one of insanity and not of non-insane automatism. The defendant then pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) dismissed his appeal and he appealed to the House of Lords.

Issue

Whether a person who commits an act of violence during an epileptic seizure, and so does not know what he is doing, may rely on non-insane automatism or whether his condition is a disease of the mind so that only the insanity defence is available.

Held

Appeal dismissed. Epilepsy is a disease of the mind within the McNaghten Rules, so the proper verdict on the evidence would have been the special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Ratio

• A disease of the mind in the legal sense is any disease which affects the mind in the sense of reason, memory and understanding, whether it is organic or functional, and whether its effects are permanent or transient and intermittent.
• A defect of reason caused by an internal factor, such as a pathological condition of the brain, falls within the McNaghten Rules, while one caused by an external factor, such as a blow or a drug, may found the defence of non-insane automatism.
• The fact that the seizure was brief and the defendant fully recovered does not prevent it from being a disease of the mind, and the legal label insanity applies even if it is unfortunate.

The judgments

Key reasoning

• The McNaghten Rules ask whether the defendant lacked the ability to know the nature and quality of his act because of a defect of reason arising from disease of the mind, and say nothing of how long the defect lasts.
• Earlier authority, including R v Kemp [1957] 1 QB 399 and Bratty v Attorney-General for Northern Ireland [1963] AC 386, had treated a transient condition arising from an internal cause as a disease of the mind.
• The policy of the law is to protect the public from those who are prone to recurrent violence arising from an internal condition, which the special verdict and its disposal options allow the court to address.

Obiter

• The House acknowledged that the name of the special verdict was unfortunate for those whose conditions such as epilepsy have no association with ordinary insanity, but that it was for Parliament to change it.

Where it fits in the module

Topic 8 on incapacity asks when a defendant should be excused because his mind did not function normally. Sullivan lies at the centre of the debate over the McNaghten Rules and the artificial distinction between insane and non-insane automatism, with the result that the legal definition of insanity captures many physical illnesses.

Criticisms

• The internal and external cause test is arbitrary, since it treats a person with epilepsy as insane while someone with a similar loss of control caused by a blow is not, though the effect on responsibility is the same.
• The label not guilty by reason of insanity stigmatises people with physical conditions and may encourage defendants to plead guilty to avoid it, as Sullivan did.
• The definition of disease of the mind is driven by the policy of protecting the public rather than by the principle that those who lack capacity are not blameworthy, so the defence is shaped by consequences more than by fault.