TW: Domestic violence, sexual assault, and aggravated assault
In a unanimous nine-judge ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that voluntary extreme intoxication can be used as a defense in assault and sexual assault cases.
This ruling has sparked many conversations about whether the law protects those impacted by sexual violence and holds abusers responsible for their actions.
In Canadian law, it is important to note that two things are needed in order for something to be considered a crime – guilty act and the guilty mind.
The guilty act (actus reus) refers to doing something that society believes to be wrong and the guilty mind (mens rea) means the person who committed the crime had the state of mind to commit the crime. In other words, the accused’s actions must be proven to be voluntary.
In violent crimes, the guilty/wrongful act is obvious. However, in some cases, establishing that the suspected criminal had the required guilty mind can be much more difficult.
Although the accused admits that they committed a crime (or the guilty act), they can use the defense that they did not have the guilty mind for the crime. Some defenses for these types of cases include sleepwalking, mental disorders, and in this case, intoxication.
In all of these examples, the accused may have committed a crime, but they had little to no control over their actions. So, is it fair to punish them for something they didn’t even know they were doing?
In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, two cases, R. v. Sullivan and R. v. Chan, were given new trials. In both of these cases, the accused had committed violent physical assaults while under the influence of voluntarily consumed drugs.
Sullivan had overdosed on prescription drugs and became intoxicated to the point where he believed his mother was ‘an alien’ and stabbed her. Chan on the other hand, had consumed magic mushrooms that caused him to have hallucinations, which he argued caused him to attack and kill his father and seriously injure his mother.
They argued that as a result of their extreme intoxications, they could not be held criminally responsible for their actions because they did not intend to commit the crimes.
In both cases, the men were found guilty of their actions as the courts did not accept their defense of extreme intoxication. However, both of these cases were then appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal.
The Ontario Court of Appeal found that in Sullivan’s case, he had the necessary means of automatism (actions without conscious thought or intent) to be acquitted. A new trial altogether was ordered for Chan’s case as the state of automatism had not been established in his case.
The Crown then appealed these cases to the Supreme Court, which dismissed the appeals as to uphold the decisions of the appeal court. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Section 33.1 of the Criminal Code was unconstitutional as it prevented the use of extreme intoxication as a legal defense. This decision means that extreme intoxication can now be used as a defense in assault cases – including sexual assault.
The Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund wrote in their written argument to the courts, “Holding individuals accountable for violent crimes committed in a state of self-induced intoxication is a pressing and substantial objective, given that a failure to do so excuses such violence and discourages reporting as an option for survivors.”
Another concern with this ruling is in regards to intoxicated domestic violence. There are many domestic violence cases where the abuser is intoxicated. With this ruling, the courts may view these cases with the belief that the abuser “had no control over their actions” and therefore cannot be held criminally responsible for their actions.
However, doesn’t this ruling then use alcohol to excuse the actions of domestic abusers?
This raises the question: Should intoxication be an available defense for crimes like sexual assault?
It is important to consider that there are alternatives to this ruling.
For example, there are cases where, although the accused did not mean to commit the crime, they can still be held criminally responsible – by using other means of mens rea (the guilty mind).
Instead of dismissing these sexual abuse cases altogether because of extreme intoxication, the courts can agree that these cases fall under criminal negligence or recklessness. Criminal negligence means that the accused failed to take reasonable steps to prevent a certain bad outcome from happening.
In addition, recklessness refers to knowing that one’s actions could lead to bad outcomes, and still doing it despite the risk. In extreme intoxication cases, the accused should be aware of the potential risks of alcohol and drugs, and that excess consumption can potentially lead to violent crimes.
Although the law is meant to be blind, fair, and equal, to give us the justice we deserve, it often seems to do the opposite in sexual assault cases. Time and time again, we hear of the justice system failing survivors of sexual assault. Police mishandling of cases, victim blaming, and low conviction rates of the already underreported crime, have all unfortunately become the reality of sexual assault cases.
When will the justice system recognize sexual assault as they recognize any other crime. When will the justice system stop poking holes in the survivors’ stories and looking for loopholes rather than simply recognizing the true severity of the crime?
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