Cardle v Mulrainey, 1992 SLT 1152, HCJ Sco
Citation:Cardle v Mulrainey, 1992 SLT 1152, HCJ Sco
Link to case on WorldLII (reference).
Rule of thumb: Where a person has knowingly taken a drug & committed a criminal offence, can this be an acquittal to a criminal offence? No, this is deemed to be a loss of self-control, but not a total alienation of reason, so this cannot be used to argue temporary insanity or diminished responsibility to avoid guilt via an acquittal, and it can be only used in a plea in mitigation to try to reduce the punishment for the offence.
Judgment:
‘... the accused knew what he was doing and was aware of the nature and quality of his acts and that what he was doing was wrong, he cannot be said to be suffering from some total alienation of reason in regard to the crime with which he is charged which the defence requires. The sheriff found in finding that the respondent’s ability to reason the consequences of his actions to himself was affected by his ingestion of the drug. The finding narrates that he was unable to take account in his actions of the fact that they were criminal in character and to refrain from them. But this inability to exert self control, which the sheriff has described as an inability to complete the reasoning process, must be distinguished from the essential requirement that there should be a total alienation of the accused’s mental faculties of reasoning and of understanding what he is doing. As in the case of provocation, which provides another example of a stimulus resulting in a loss of self control at the time of the act, this may mitigate the offence but it cannot be held to justify an acquittal ... Hence the insistence in Ross on a total alienation of reason in relation to the crime charged. This is necessary in order to distinguish the condition from other conditions which may be regarded at best as merely mitigating the offence.... There are findings that he intended to start the motor vehicles, steal them and drive them away. In the light of these findings the sheriff’s conclusion that the respondent’s ability to reason the consequences of his actions to himself was affected by his ingestion of the drug and that he was unable to refrain from them was relevant at best only to mitigation. He should have held that the respondent’s reason in relation to the crimes charged was not totally alienated and that he did not have a proper basis for the defence.‘ Lord Hope
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.