Appeal court: assault after rude awakening not criminal

A Battleford man who was charged with assault causing bodily harm after striking his common-law partner when she “violently” woke him up didn’t do anything criminal, according to the province’s top court.

In a decision filed earlier this month, three Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan judges concluded with a trial judge’s view that the man’s actions had “the hallmarks of a reflexive action” and that he should be acquitted.

The charges stem from a June 2014 incident during which the woman returned home drunk and became angry after learning that the man kicked in a door before falling asleep, according to the decision.

The woman testified at trial that she struck him on the foot, pulled his leg and asked him to leave, at which point he got up, hit her in the face with his hand and threw her on the bed, the decision stated.

The woman went on to testify that two of her cousins entered the bedroom and subdued the man, allowing her to hit him several times in the face with a closed fist. The RCMP were contacted and the man was arrested and charged.

The man was initially acquitted at trial after the judge concluded that the alleged assault “was an automatic and unthinking response to being startled from sleep in an aggressive fashion.”

“Plausible evidence regarding the defendant’s actions raises a doubt in my mind based on reason and common sense as to the presence of the necessary intent,” the trial judge said.

Prosecutors appealed the verdict, arguing that in cases of “automatism” it is up to the defence to prove that the action was involuntary, but the higher court sided with the trial judge and, earlier this year, upheld the acquittal.

The Appeal Court judges disagreed with the Crown’s position, stating in their decision that “dissociative states” caused by drugs or mental illness are different than reflex actions.

“Take, for example, the situation where a person reacts after a swarm of bees enters the cabin of his vehicle and is charged with dangerous driving,” the judges wrote in the decision.

“If that person argues his actions were involuntary, there would be little point in obliging him or her to call expert psychiatric evidence or, indeed, any expert evidence to prove that point.”