Authored By: Momota Rakshit
Anglia Ruskin
Case Name: Bratty v Attorney-General for Northern Ireland (1961) 3 All ER 523 (HL)
Court: House of Lords.
Judgment Date: 1961.
Legal Issues
- Automatism as a Defence.
- Criminal Responsibility and Insanity.
- Burden of Proof.
Introduction
“Bratty v. Attorney-General for Northern Ireland” [1961] 3 The judgment in All ER 523 HL was decided by the House of Lords. When attempting to define these offenses and the conditions under which they apply, this case serves as a guiding authority. This case was determined by the HL on the question of whether epilepsy may be fully used as a defense to murder since it is an internal cause of involuntary activity. In a judgment primarily delivered by Lord Denning, the limits of criminal liability, mental illness, and volition were clarified. Its case is an active point of discussion on the lines between medical and legal definitions of mental incapacity.
Facts of the Case
The appellant, William Bratty, was giving a lift to Josephine Fitzsimmons, a teenage girl. On the way, he choked her with one of her stockings. The accused confessed to the murder later, claiming to have done it accidentally due to an epileptic seizure. When Bratty was accused of murder, he said that he was insane or unconscious of his actions. According to the medical records, he had psychomotor epilepsy, which caused him to behave automatically. Bratty was found guilty of murder because the trial judge instructed the jury to focus on insanity instead of automatism. Did epilepsy fall within automatism or insanity?
Legal Issues
The House of Lords faced three central issues.
- Whether an involuntary act caused by epilepsy could constitute automatism in law.
- How to distinguish between automatism and insanity where an internal mental disorder exists.
- On whom the burden of proof rests when such a defence is raised — the prosecution or the defence.
The HL needed to clarify the differences between: 1) temporary unconsciousness, and 2) a long-term mental illness that makes an accused incapable of making a choice.
Judgment
Lord Denning, in delivering the leading judgment, made a neat distinction between automatism and insanity. In his view, if the actions of a person who suffers from a mental illness, i.e., epilepsy, are classified as automatism, it would be wrong and instead be classified as insanity. The agency term automatism applies only to the voluntary or involuntary act that is caused by an external factor, like a blow or intoxication. The court found that Bratty fell within the M’Naghten Rules definition of disease of the mind. According to Lord Denning, a person can only be held criminally responsible if it is proved that his act was voluntary. If something bad happens due to an involuntary action, there is no criminal case. The Innocent passage states that the law distinguishes involuntariness of actions caused by an insane delusion and an automaton. If the cause is internal and continuing, it is insanity. If the cause is external and transient, it may be automatism.
The prosecutor always has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But once the defence raises insanity, the defence bears the burden of proving insanity on the balance of probabilities. In the end, the House of Lords ruled that Bratty was guilty of murder as psychomotor epilepsy was classified as a ‘disease of the mind’ under the M’Naghten Rules.
Legal Principles Established
Bratty clarified and established several basic principles.
- A Different Viewpoint on the Automatism Claim. Psychiatrists called to testify produced a conundrum. It shows how the automatism claim can be viewed differently. If something is caused by an external factor, it may be thought of as automatism.
- Insanity is an internal condition, whether temporary or permanent, that affects a person’s mental functioning and control of the mind.
- The defendant must prove they were insane, while the prosecution must prove that Jacob did not act out of automatism
- To be legally liable, the offender’s act must have been voluntary.
Judicial reasoning in R V Quick [1973] QB 910, R v Hennessy [1989] 1 WLR 287, and R V Burgess [1991] 2 QB 92 remains embellished with these principles.
Discussion and Analysis
The Bratty decision was made when they created something good, but there was also some bad. Although many people are aware that not being insane does not make you able with something really special, medically wrong with you, or a condition, etc, yet no one knows. epilepsy is medically a mental disorder, but the law sees it as an intellectual disability and makes the safety of the public its main concern. In Mind Fixers by Randi Jones, Denning believed that people with mental disorders could harm the most and are better cared for in a court than on a holiday. It is to protect society and not liberate the offender. Critics say that this approach destroys a life by causing unfair effects on the defenseless.
Subsequent cases refined Bratty’s principles. In the case of R V Quick (1973) QB 910, hypoglycaemia was defined as automatism (external insulin use). On the other hand, R v Hennessy said that hyperglycaemia was insanity. Like this, in the case of R V Burgess (1991) 2 WLR 1206, the defendant was held insane because of his sleep disorder. These developments confirm the lasting internal-external test choice.
Andrew Ashworth argues that the bratty framework is a sensible compromise. According to Tom Bingham, a crime-based liability takes place when the voluntary conduct is in accordance with the principles of Bratty. Dividing criminal and civil law aids with exactness, clarity, and distinct separation of issues. The Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 and the Mental Health Act 1983 made the procedure of controlling mentally disordered criminals more up to date, but the essence of the procedure comes from the case of Bratty.
Conclusion
The case of Bratty V Attorney-General of Northern Ireland 1961 remains the principal case when it comes to automatism and insanity. Where the cause of actions was internal, the diminished responsibility defense is appropriate under M’Naghten rules, not automatism. This case proves that victims choose to be criminals by themselves, and it helps judges to make proper decisions in those kinds of cases. There is criticism of the Bratty case as it is not medical according to many scholars, but it is still widely used.
The following is the major emphasis of this case.
How much the accused criminal understood the gravity of the offense.
At the moment of the act, did they understand what was right and wrong?
Two elements must be satisfied for a court to declare a defendant crazy. One of those elements is the following.
Following the M’Naghten decision, American courts began using it. Legal and moral standards for what constitutes wrongdoing in this context may differ from one court to the next. Additionally, the ability for a defendant to fully comprehend the consequences of their actions has been removed in some jurisdictions from the concept of legal insanity.
By using the M’Naghten Rule.
Think about the potential consequences of a ruling that insanity applies to a specific situation to have a better idea of the legal definition of insanity.
Murdering his own family, a guy then patiently awaited the arrival of the authorities.
He was too mentally sick to understand that his illegal behavior was wrong, according to three mental health professionals who testified against him. Just because he was crazy wasn’t enough to convict him. His punishment was a decade spent in a mental institution.
Using a shovel, a lady with severe schizophrenia assaulted her neighbor. Authorities brought assault and battery charges against her. A devil was attempting to steal her soul, she said, and her neighbor was his puppet. Since a jury found her to be mad, she was unable to comprehend her actions. She was therefore exonerated. There are two ways in which the two courts mentioned above show that this rule may lead to a defendant being pronounced legally insane.
Several people have voiced their disapproval of the M’Naghten test for legal insanity. One argument against the medical definition of insanity is that it is not always satisfied by defendants who satisfy the legal one. However, forced medical treatment is still a common order from the courts. The M’Naghten Rule, according to some detractors, fails to distinguish between hazardous and non-dangerous offenders. The fact that it fails to distinguish between them is another point of contention.
Further Evaluations:
Whether a person with a mental illness is eligible to employ the insanity defense has been decided by courts using alternative rule tests. The M’Naghten Rule was downplayed by a New Hampshire court in 1871. According to the ruling of the court, a person is not responsible for a crime that they committed because of their mental illness. The accused would never have committed the alleged crime due to his mental illness. The Alabama Supreme Court created the Irresistible Impulse Test in 1887 for situations when a defendant knew their conduct was wrong but couldn’t help but do it nonetheless. Furthermore, it is the defendant’s responsibility to prove that they are mentally ill and so unable to refrain from or oppose the action at issue.
The Durham Determination of Criminal Liability
Durham v. Durham was a 1954 decision of the US Supreme Court. The Durham Rule, codified by this court’s decision, states that “an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect.”
The same Court of Appeals did away with the Durham Rule after adopting the model in 1972.
An Approach to Penal Codes
The American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code (MPC) offers norms and recommendations for the law. “A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect, he lacks substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality [wrongfulness] of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law,” states the MPC-rule.
Bibliography (OSCOLA Format)
Cases
Bratty v Attorney-General for Northern Ireland [1961] 3 All ER 523 (HL)
R v Quick [1973] QB 910
R v Hennessy [1989] 1 WLR 287
R v Burgess [1991] 2 QB 92
Legislation
M’Naghten Rules (1843)
Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964
Mental Health Act 1983
Books and Articles
A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (10th edn, Macmillan 1959)
H.L.A. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility (OUP 1968)
Glanville Williams, Textbook of Criminal Law (2nd edn, Stevens 1983)
Andrew Ashworth, Principles of Criminal Law (8th edn, OUP 2016)
Tom Bingham, The Rule of Law (Allen Lane 2010)
