Details of the defendants' case came to light on Friday, when their lawyer Alison Gurden told recorder Paul Grumbar that "a defence of
automatism could be raised.
Our patient had seizure semiology of falling, tonic spasm of limbs, oral
automatism, vocalization, and hypermotor activities.
Doctrinal scholars have focused on mental state/impairment "defences" such as insanity,
automatism, diminished responsibility, infanticide, and sometimes intoxication, without taking a step back to analyze the conceptual underpinnings of this category of "defences" as a whole.
According to Fried, a very "different stylistic regime is in force" (6) in Salammbo, inasmuch as every aspect of the text that Flaubert could control is "exclusively the product of conscious intention, of the faculty of will," resulting in a novel "devoid of the effects of habit and
automatism that are continually at work in Madame Bovary" (117).
Mr McSporran said Ross was too old to be tested for
automatism. But the Crown had to accept, "on the balance of probability and in the absence of another explanation", that she had the condition.
However
automatism would be difficult to prove where the medical condition is pre-existing.
automatism has been construed very narrowly by the courts.Whilst it is not impossible to establish, you should take advice from amotoring solicitor who will be able to apply the factsofthe decided cases to your particular circumstances.
Hantai's "Etudes," departing from that conception, refigure
automatism not as a descent into psychic depths but as an opening toward an outside.
His landmark treatise on
automatisms, which includes references to psychology and parapsychology authors (e.g., Theodore Flournoy, William James, and F.
In the latter case, the accused acted in an epileptic
automatism when he stabbed his sister to death with a carving knife he was using at the time.
This neutrality is related to what he calls the "
automatism of the mechanically produced image" (182).
If an addiction is an
automatism, then our job as treatment professionals is twofold: first, to educate alcoholics and addicts about the nature of their condition and what they have to do; second, to hold them responsible for maintaining abstinence.
