{"id":22781,"date":"2022-06-21T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T16:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=22781"},"modified":"2022-06-16T12:05:10","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T19:05:10","slug":"open-space-self-induced-extreme-intoxication-defence-terrifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2022\/06\/21\/open-space-self-induced-extreme-intoxication-defence-terrifying\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: Self-induced extreme intoxication defence terrifying"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday May 13, The Supreme Court of Canada made the unanimous decision to support the defence of \u201cself-induced extreme intoxication\u201d in court. In other words, you can now avoid conviction for committing violent crime if you\u2019re high or drunk enough.<\/p>\n

Seriously.<\/p>\n

This ruling came from the case of Matthew Winston Brown, who broke into houses and committed violent crimes while deep under the influence of magic mushrooms. Brown pleaded not guilty because of automatism (when someone is so intoxicated or impaired that they have no voluntary control over their actions), and, naturally, people were skeptical about the legality of this defence. The debate around whether or not he could use it went back and forth for years, until it eventually landed his case in the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The extreme intoxication defence needs to be heavily monitored, argues Nexus<\/em> writer Celina Lessard (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And it was a unanimous ruling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the surface this decision might seem logical. After all, in Canada, both a guilty action and a guilty mind are required for a person to be found guilty of a crime. And neither element is present when a person is in a state of automatism. But this bill will have massive impact on crimes such as sexual assault.<\/p>\n

I find it terrifying to think that \u201cI was too drunk or high to know what I was doing\u201d is now a legal defence. For years, the whole culture of victim-blaming has had the mindset of \u201cwell, they shouldn\u2019t have been drunk.\u201d And now their assailant can get out of jail because they were drunk.<\/p>\n

What a mess.<\/p>\n

To the court\u2019s credit, they have said that \u201cprotecting the victims of violent crime\u2014particularly in light of the equality and dignity interests of women and children who are vulnerable to intoxicated sexual and domestic acts\u2014is a pressing and substantial social purpose.\u201d So they are, at the very least, conscious that this defence could include crime like sexual assault.<\/p>\n

But the promises and reassurance that this defence won\u2019t be misused mean nothing when put up against the law.<\/p>\n

I can see all sides here, and this is one of those times when there\u2019s a moral (and now legal) grey area. As the Supreme Court said, \u201cConvicting someone for how they conducted themselves while in a state of automatism violates principles of fundamental justice.\u201d But at the same time, this new defence does not provide justice for victims.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We need to make sure that the self-induced extreme intoxication defence is heavily monitored, or things could get even worse for survivors of sexual assault and violent crime.<\/p>\n

This decision will have an impact far greater than just Brown\u2019s case, and that terrifies me.<\/p>\n

It should terrify you, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday May 13, The Supreme Court of Canada made the unanimous decision to support the defence of \u201cself-induced extreme intoxication\u201d in court. In other words, you can now avoid conviction for committing violent crime if you\u2019re high or drunk enough. Seriously. This ruling came from the case of Matthew Winston Brown, who broke into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-views"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22782,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22781\/revisions\/22782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}