R. v. Oommen, [1994] 2 S.C.R. 507
Her Majesty The Queen Appellant
v.
Mathew Oommen Respondent
Indexed as: R. v. Oommen
1994: April 25; 1994: June 23.
Present: Lamer C.J. and La Forest, L'Heureux‑Dubé, Sopinka, Gonthier, Cory, McLachlin, Iacobucci and Major JJ.
on appeal from the court of appeal for alberta
Criminal law ‑‑ Defences ‑‑ Insanity ‑‑ Delusions ‑‑ Murder ‑‑ Whether accused lacked capacity to distinguish right from wrong at time of killing ‑‑ Meaning of phrase "knowing that [the act] was wrong" in s. 16(1) of Criminal Code, R.S.C., 1985, c. C‑46.
The accused killed, without apparent motive, a friend who was sleeping in his apartment. For a number of years the accused had been suffering from a mental disorder described as a psychosis of a paranoid delusional type and, at the time of the killing, his paranoia was fixed on a belief that the members of a local union were conspiring to "destroy" him. On the night of the murder, he became convinced that they had surrounded his apartment building with the intention of killing him. This delusion, combined with his belief that the victim was one of the conspirators, persuaded him that he was obliged to kill the victim to prevent her from killing him.
At his trial on a charge of second degree murder, the accused raised the defence of insanity. Psychiatrists testified that the accused possessed the general capacity to distinguish right from wrong and would know that to kill a person is wrong but that, on the night of the murder, his delusion deprived him of that capacity and led him to believe that killing was necessary and justified under the circumstances as he perceived them. The trial judge rejected the defence of insanity, concluding that in view of the accused's general capacity to know right from wrong, he was not relieved from criminal responsibility under s. 16(1) of the Criminal Code, notwithstanding his subjective belief, at the time of the killing, that what he did was right and his inability to apply his general knowledge of right and wrong. The Court of Appeal allowed the accused's appeal and ordered a new trial on the ground that the trial judge had erred in his interpretation of s. 16(1).
Held: The appeal should be dismissed.
Section 16(1) of the Code embraces not only the intellectual ability to know right from wrong in an abstract sense, but also the ability to apply that knowledge in a rational way to the alleged criminal act. Indeed, the section focuses on the particular capacity of the accused to understand that his act was wrong at the time of committing the act. An accused should thus be exempted from criminal liability where, at the time of the act, a mental disorder deprived him of the capacity for rational perception and hence rational choice about the rightness or wrongness of the act. An accused need not establish that his delusion permits him to raise a specific defence, such as self‑defence, to be exempted from criminal responsibility. The inability to make a rational choice may result from a variety of mental disorders, including delusions which cause an accused to perceive an act which is wrong as right or justifiable. Here, the evidence was capable of supporting a conclusion that the accused was deprived of the capacity to know his act was wrong by the standards of the ordinary person.
Cases Cited
Referred to: R. v. Chaulk, 1990 CanLII 34 (SCC), [1990] 3 S.C.R. 1303; M'Naghten's Case (1843), 10 Cl. & Fin. 200, 8 E.R. 718; R. v. Porter (1933), 55 C.L.R. 182; Stapleton v. The Queen (1952), 86 C.L.R. 358.
Statutes and Regulations Cited
Criminal Code, R.S.C., 1985, c. C‑46, s. 16 [rep. & sub. 1991, c. 43, s. 2].
Authors Cited
Fingarette, Herbert. The Meaning of Criminal Insanity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
Martin, G. Arthur. "Insanity as a Defence" (1965‑66), 8 Crim. L.Q. 240.
Tollefson, Edwin A., and Bernard Starkman. Mental Disorder in Criminal Proceedings. Scarborough, Ont.: Carswell, 1993.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Alberta Court of Appeal (1993), 1993 ABCA 131, 135 A.R. 321, 33 W.A.C. 321, 21 C.R. (4th) 117, allowing the accused's appeal from his conviction for murder and ordering a new trial. Appeal dismissed.
Paul C. Bourque, for the appellant.
Mona T. Duckett, for the respondent.
The judgment of the Court was delivered by
McLachlin J. -- In the early morning hours of March 24, 1991, Mathew Oommen killed Gina Lynn Beaton as she lay sleeping on a mattress in his apartment by firing 9 to 13 shots at her from a .22 calibre rimfire semi-automatic repeating rifle. On February 26, 1992, he was convicted of second degree murder before a judge alone and sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for ten years. The Alberta Court of Appeal set aside the conviction and ordered a new trial on the ground that the trial judge had erred in his interpretation of the insanity provision of s. 16(1) of the Criminal Code, R.S.C., 1985, c. C‑46. The Crown appeals to this Court against that order, seeking reinstatement of the conviction for murder.
The Evidence
The evidence disclosed no rational motive for the killing. To understand it, we must delve into the disordered workings of Mr. Oommen's mind.
For a number of years Mr. Oommen had been suffering from a mental disorder described as a psychosis of a paranoid delusional type. As a result, he harboured false and fixed beliefs that he was the butt of conspiracies and situations that endangered him. Mr. Oommen's disorder had led to hospitalization in 1984, 1988 and in February of 1991, shortly before he killed Ms. Beaton.
At the time of the killing, Mr. Oommen's paranoia was fixed on a belief that the members of a local union were conspiring to destroy him. In November 1986, he had been struck on the head and robbed while driving a taxi cab. Mr. Oommen attributed this incident to the fact that he had transported certain individuals during labour disputes at one of the local plants. His friends and doctors testified that he became paranoid that there would be further attacks on his life.
At this point, Gina Lynn Beaton came into Mr. Oommen's life and tragically became part of his delusion. The two met prior to Christmas 1990. Ms. Beaton needed a place to stay. Mr. Oommen let her stay in his apartment for a period of time, in return for some cooking and cleaning. Mr. Oommen sought the advice of both friends and a local police officer as to the propriety of his sheltering Ms. Beaton. He seemed to be concerned that the relationship might be misapprehended as sexual. After a while, Ms. Beaton left the apartment and moved to Edmonton. Shortly before her death, she returned to Fort McMurray and Mr. Oommen's apartment.
Mr. Oommen became fixated with the notion that his assailants and enemies had incorporated Ms. Beaton and commissioned her to kill him. On the evening of the killing he became convinced that members of the conspiracy had surrounded his apartment building with the intention of moving in on him and killing him. This delusion, combined with his belief that Ms. Beaton was one of the conspirators, convinced him that he was obliged to kill her to prevent her from killing him. So he shot her while she lay sleeping on the floor.
It was established that about the time of the killing, Mr. Oommen called a taxi dispatcher several times to request the police. It was also established that someone had rung the buzzers or doorbells of all the apartments. Mr. Oommen said that this was the signal from the conspirators outside to Ms. Beaton to kill him. A tenant, awakened by the doorbell, saw Mr. Oommen outside the building twice soon afterward, apparently putting liquor containers in the garbage. Another tenant, similarly awakened, went out into the hall and met Mr. Oommen, who asked him to call the police because he had just killed someone who had come at him with a knife. When the police arrived Mr. Oommen told the officer, "I called the caretaker. I shot and killed a girl inside. She thought I was sleeping. She came with a knife. I had no other choice, so I shot her, okay." Mr. Oommen repeated this story to the lawyer a friend found for him, Mr. George. He explained that he had shot and killed the girl who had been staying with him. Mr. George asked why. Mr. Oommen replied that she had tried to come with a knife and kill him. He said he saw something, a shiny object, in her hand and "[i]nstead [of her] killing me, I went and lowered the gun and killed her".
Mr. Oommen repeated this story at 5:27 a.m. in his statement to the police. Constable Bazowski observed that during the interview, Mr. Oommen vacillated between quiet and animated behaviour. Sometimes his voice would drop to a whisper; sometimes he would pound his fist on the table to emphasize his points. He seemed eager to offer an explanation of what had happened. He explained that he had seen the deceased pass his bedroom door with a knife in her hand as she went to the washroom on more than one occasion during the night. He knew that she was going to kill him, he thought on the instructions of others, and he "opened fire" on her as she lay pretending to be asleep. He had no choice or he would have been killed. Constable Bazowski gained the impression that Mr. Oommen believed the constable was investigating or ought to investigate why the girl was trying to kill him.
There was no question at trial that Mr. Oommen had killed Ms. Beaton. Nor was there much doubt that Mr. Oommen's insane delusions provoked the killing. As Dr. Trichard testified:
He, on that very night of the assault, was convinced that there were people outside the building that had staked out the building and were coming to attack him. He had, in fact, heard the buzzers being rung throughout the building and had incorporated this into his idea that he was being pursued.
On the night in question, he also became convinced that his assailants had incorporated the unfortunate deceased and had given her the commission that she was to kill him. So that on that night, it was him alone with her in this apartment, and it was either she was going to kill him, or he had to stop her. I believe that he was therefore acting under a delusion at the time that he committed this offence.
The only issue was whether this delusion exempted Mr. Oommen from criminal responsibility under s. 16(1) of the Criminal Code on the ground that he lacked the capacity at the relevant time to know the difference between right and wrong. Dr. Trichard testified that a person suffering from this mental disorder would not lose the intellectual capacity to understand right from wrong and would know that to kill a person is wrong. However, the person's delusions would affect the person's interpretation of events so that the individual would honestly believe killing to be justified under the circumstances. In the abstract, the person would know killing was wrong. But his delusion would cause him to believe that killing was justified under the circumstances as he perceived them. In Crown cross-examination Dr. Trichard stated:
Q.You have a person suffering from the disease that you have described. He kills someone and does not believe he has done wrong, or does not at the time he is doing the killing believe he is doing wrong. In this disorder as opposed to others, that cannot be because he thinks killing is not wrong in any abstract sense, but because he has some particular delusion or belief, or maybe some actual information -- maybe his killing really is justified in a particular situation -- but he has some believe [sic] that justifies it to him?
A.I believe that that would be so, yes.
And again:
Q.Dr. Trichard, if you could address yourself then to the account you received of Mr. Oommen's case and the killing that he did, it would be your belief that he, in his own mind at the time of doing it, would, because of his delusions and his fear, feel he was justified in doing what he was doing?
A.Yes, I do believe that.
In other words, Mr. Oommen possessed the general capacity to distinguish right from wrong. However, on the night of the killing, his delusions deprived him of the capacity to know that killing Ms. Beaton was wrong. On the contrary, those delusions led him to believe that killing was necessary and justified.
Statutory Provisions
Section 16(1) of the Criminal Code (as amended by S.C. 1991, c. 43, s. 2) reads as follows:
- (1) No person is criminally responsible for an act committed or an omission made while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.
The above version of s. 16(1) came into force on February 4, 1992. Prior to that, s. 16 of the Criminal Code provided:
- (1) No person shall be convicted of an offence in respect of an act or omission on his part while that person was insane.
(2) For the purposes of this section, a person is insane when the person is in a state of natural imbecility or has disease of the mind to an extent that renders the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of an act or omission or of knowing that an act or omission is wrong.
(3) A person who has specific delusions, but is in other respects sane, shall not be acquitted on the ground of insanity unless the delusions caused that person to believe in the existence of a state of things that, if it existed, would have justified or excused the act or omission of that person.
Section 16 was amended following the judgment of this Court in R. v. Chaulk, 1990 CanLII 34 (SCC), [1990] 3 S.C.R. 1303, in which the majority of the Court held that the former s. 16(3) was redundant.
Judgments
Trial
The trial judge found that the accused was acting under the influence of a paranoid delusion at the time of the killing and that this was the cause of the killing: "When I consider what caused the murder, I find that I have very little doubt that it was caused and, indeed, compelled by the mental disorder suffered by [Mr. Oommen] and described by the psychiatrists as psychosis of a delusional paranoid type." The trial judge found that on a balance of probabilities Mr. Oommen "was capable of knowing that what he was doing was wrong according to moral standards of society.... [H]e was capable of knowing that society in general would regard it as wrong."
Despite this general capacity to distinguish right from wrong, the trial judge found as a fact that "subjectively the accused did not believe his act was wrong". Whether because of this subjective belief in the rightness of his act or confusion engendered by the delusion, the trial judge found that Mr. Oommen was unable to apply his general ability to distinguish right from wrong to the act of killing Ms. Beaton: "I must say that I'm certain that the fact of that knowledge could not have in any way assisted the accused in refraining from committing the act because in his own mind he believed he had no choice to do anything but what he did." The trial judge concluded that in view of the accused's general capacity to know right from wrong, he was not relieved from criminal responsibility under s. 16(1), notwithstanding his subjective belief that what he did was right and his inability to apply his general knowledge of right and wrong.
Court of Appeal (1993), 1993 ABCA 131, 21 C.R. (4th) 117
Kerans J.A. (Fraser C.J.A. concurring) reviewed recent judgments and changes in the Criminal Code regarding insanity. He interpreted the decision of this Court in Chaulk to stand for the proposition that the former s. 16(3) of the Code was "superfluous", not that the defence stated therein is unavailable. In his view, s. 16(1) of the Code obliged the trial judge to direct his mind to the question of whether Mr. Oommen, despite no proven incapacity to understand societal views about right and wrong, lacked the capacity, because of his disease and the resulting delusions, to apply that knowledge in any meaningful way at the time of the killing. The majority reasoned that if Mr. Oommen could be said to have feared for his life at the time of the murder, then the act of killing, from his point of view, would not be wrong, with the result that he would be found not to be capable of distinguishing right from wrong within s. 16(1). While it was the notion of self-defence that made the act justifiable in the killer's mind, the inquiry, according to Kerans J.A., was not a matter of applying the defence of self-defence, but rather a personalized inquiry under insanity law. He concluded (at pp. 125‑26):
I conclude that s. 16(1) must, to make sense, ordain a necessary degree of personalization of the rules for those who can show, on a balance of probabilities, that they suffer from insane delusions. The question, then, is whether, assuming the delusions to be true, would a reasonable person see a threat to life and a need for death-threatening force?
A new trial was directed on the ground that the trial judge had failed to direct his mind to the delusions Mr. Oommen was under and their effect on whether he was capable, given those delusions, of knowing that the killing was wrong.
Côté J.A. concurred in the result on the ground that the trial judge had failed to consider vital matters. However, in his view the phrase "knowing that it was wrong" in s. 16(1) applies only to mistake or delusion of a moral or legal nature and does not extend to mistakes or delusions of a purely factual nature. So if the only delusion was that his life was being threatened, he would be criminally responsible notwithstanding his mental disorder.
Analysis
The Legal Question
Section 16(1) affirms that a person who lacks the capacity to know that the act he is committing is wrong is exempt from criminal responsibility.
This appeal poses the following legal issue. What is meant by the phrase "knowing that [the act] was wrong" in s. 16(1)? Does it refer only to abstract knowledge that the act of killing would be viewed as wrong by society? Or does it extend to the inability to rationally apply knowledge of right and wrong and hence to conclude that the act in question is one which one ought not to do?
A review of the history of our insanity provision and the cases indicates that the inquiry focuses not on general capacity to know right from wrong, but rather on the ability to know that a particular act was wrong in the circumstances. The accused must possess the intellectual ability to know right from wrong in an abstract sense. But he or she must also possess the ability to apply that knowledge in a rational way to the alleged criminal act.
The wording of s. 16(1) suggests this result. It proclaims that the focus is not a general capacity to understand that the act, say of killing, is wrong, but rather the act "committed" or omission "made", i.e. the particular act or omission at issue in the criminal proceedings.
The history of s. 16(1) confirms this. The provision finds its origin in the "M'Naghten Rules": M'Naghten's Case (1843), 10 Cl. & Fin. 200, 8 E.R. 718. The House of Lords put the following questions, inter alia, to the judges (at p. 720):
2d. What are the proper questions to be submitted to the jury, where a person alleged to be afflicted with insane delusion respecting one or more particular subjects or persons, is charged with the commission of a crime (murder, for example), and insanity is set up as a defence?
3d. In what terms ought the question to be left to the jury, as to the prisoner's state of mind at the time when the act was committed?
Lord Chief Justice Tindal replied (at p. 722) that the judges thought that these two questions could be answered together:
[W]e have to submit our opinion to be, that the jurors ought to be told in all cases that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his crimes, until the contrary be proved to their satisfaction; and that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong. [Emphasis added.]
Both the question and answer demonstrate that the rule focuses not on a general capacity to understand right and wrong in some abstract sense, but on the particular capacity of the accused to understand that his or her act was wrong at the time of committing the act. Lord Chief Justice Tindal added an explanation of the word "wrong" (at p. 723):
If the accused was conscious that the act was one which he ought not to do, and if that act was at the same time contrary to the law of the land, he is punishable; and the usual course therefore has been to leave the question to the jury, whether the party accused had a sufficient degree of reason to know that he was doing an act that was wrong.... [Emphasis added.]
Tollefson and Starkman, Mental Disorder in Criminal Proceedings (1993), at p. 30, suggest that what the judges were saying was this:
We agree with you that the meaning to be conveyed to the jury is that the exemption is based on whether the accused is capable of knowing that the act was contrary to the law. But for practical reasons, the jury cannot be told that in so many words. We therefore use the word `wrong', and make it as clear as possible that the jurors must view the act in the context of the specific charge and not in some general sense. [Emphasis added.]
In Chaulk, supra, this Court affirmed that the focus must be on capacity to know that the act committed was wrong, and not merely on a general capacity to distinguish right from wrong. Lamer C.J., writing for the majority, stated (at p. 1354):
The principal issue in this regard is the capacity of the accused person to know that a particular act or omission is wrong. As such, to ask simply what is the meaning of the word "wrong" for the purposes of s. 16(2) is to frame the question too narrowly. To paraphrase the words of the House of Lords in M'Naghten's Case, the courts must determine in any particular case whether an accused was rendered incapable, by the fact of his mental disorder, of knowing that the act committed was one that he ought not have done. [Emphasis in original.]
The crux of the inquiry is whether the accused lacks the capacity to rationally decide whether the act is right or wrong and hence to make a rational choice about whether to do it or not. The inability to make a rational choice may result from a variety of mental disfunctions; as the following passages indicate these include at a minimum the states to which the psychiatrists testified in this case -- delusions which make the accused perceive an act which is wrong as right or justifiable, and a disordered condition of the mind which deprives the accused of the ability to rationally evaluate what he is doing.
In R. v. Porter (1933), 55 C.L.R. 182 (H.C. Aust.), at pp. 189-90, Dixon J. charged a jury in the following oft-cited manner:
The question is whether [the accused] was able to appreciate the wrongness of the particular act he was doing at the particular time. Could this man be said to know in this sense whether his act was wrong if through a disease or defect or disorder of the mind he could not think rationally of the reasons which to ordinary people make that act right or wrong? If through the disordered condition of the mind he could not reason about the matter with a moderate degree of sense and composure it may be said that he could not know that what he was doing was wrong.... What is meant by wrong is wrong having regard to the everyday standards of reasonable people. [Emphasis added.]
In Stapleton v. The Queen (1952), 86 C.L.R. 358, at p. 367, the High Court of Australia concluded:
... it is enough if [the disease, disorder, or defect of reason] so governed the faculties at the time of the commission of the act that the accused was incapable of reasoning with some moderate degree of calmness as to the wrongness of the act or of comprehending the nature or significance of the act of killing.
G. Arthur Martin, Q.C. (later Martin J.A.), put it this way in "Insanity as a Defence" (1965-66), 8 Crim. L.Q. 240, at p. 246:
In considering whether an accused was, by reason of insanity, incapable of knowing the nature and quality of the act committed by him, or that it was wrong, the legally relevant time is the time when the act was committed. The accused may by a process of reconstruction after committing some harmful act realize that he has committed the act and know that it was wrong. That is not inconsistent with an inability to appreciate the nature and quality of the act or to know that it was wrong at the moment of committing it.
A person may have adequate intelligence to know that the commission of a certain act, e.g., murder, is wrong but at the time of the commission of the act in question he may be so obsessed with delusions or subject to impulses which are the product of insanity that he is incapable of bringing his mind to bear on what he is doing and the considerations which to normal people would make the act right or wrong. In such a situation the accused should be exempt from criminal liability. [Emphasis added.]
It was suggested that Mr. Oommen could be exempted from criminal responsibility only if he could make out the defence of self-defence. I do not agree. There is no suggestion in the authorities that the accused must establish that his delusion permits him to raise a specific defence, such as self-defence. The issue is whether the accused possessed the capacity present in the ordinary person to know that the act in question was wrong having regard to the everyday standards of the ordinary person. It is not necessary additionally to show that the defence of self-defence would also apply. Indeed, to posit such a requirement is to require the defence to prove two logically inconsistent propositions: first, that the accused was by reason of mental disorder unable to make the choice which a reasonable person would make; and second, that the accused acted reasonably in repelling an imminent attack. The difficulty is avoided, however, when it is recognized that s. 16 is not merely a vehicle for bringing particular defences before the court; it is an independent condition of criminal responsibility, as this Court affirmed in Chaulk and as the wording of the amended section makes clear. It may be that the nature of the delusion is to create a subjective impression in the accused's mind that he must defend himself or himself be killed, akin to that present when the defence of self-defence is raised, but that is incidental. Thus the question is not whether, assuming the delusions to be true, a reasonable person would have seen a threat to life and a need for death-threatening force. Rather, the real question is whether the accused should be exempted from criminal responsibility because a mental disorder at the time of the act deprived him of the capacity for rational perception and hence rational choice about the rightness or wrongness of the act.
It was also suggested that to permit an exemption from criminal responsibility in this case would be to open the door to exemption in cases of failure to exercise the will. The law has long distinguished between disorders affecting the ability to recognize what is wrong, and the will to act or refrain from acting (although at the time of M'Naghten's Case the distinction may not have been as clear as we are wont to think: see Tollefson and Starkman, supra, at p. 39). Moreover, the wording of s. 16(1) suggests a cognitive test. This said, it must be recognized that impulse may be part of the mental mix which prevents a person from rationally evaluating the wrongness of his act. As Tollefson and Starkman state at pp. 40-41:
Section 16 of the Canadian Criminal Code employs a "cognitive test" and does not provide exemption from criminal responsibility for people who claim that mental disorder rendered them incapable of controlling their volition. It has been recognized, however, that evidence of irresistible impulse may be adduced as a symptom of disease of the mind which will be taken into account by the jury in determining whether the accused was suffering from mental disorder to the extent of being rendered incapable of exercising the "cognitive" functions of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong. See R. v. Wolfson (1965), 1965 CanLII 557 (AB SCAD), 51 D.L.R. (2d) 428 (Alta. C.A.); R. v. Borg, 1969 CanLII 79 (SCC), [1969] S.C.R. 551, per Hall J. at 570-71; R. v. Abbey, 1982 CanLII 25 (SCC), [1982] 2 S.C.R. 24, at 38-39.
Finally, it should be noted that we are not here concerned with the psychopath or the person who follows a personal and deviant code of right and wrong. The accused in the case at bar accepted society's views on right and wrong. The suggestion is that, accepting those views, he was unable because of his delusion to perceive that his act of killing was wrong in the particular circumstances of the case. On the contrary, as the psychiatrists testified, he viewed it as right. This is different from the psychopath or person following a deviant moral code. Such a person is capable of knowing that his or her acts are wrong in the eyes of society, and despite such knowledge, chooses to commit them. To quote Herbert Fingarette, The Meaning of Criminal Insanity (1972), at pp. 200‑201:
It should be evident that we are not here reverting to the thesis that "knew it was wrong" means "judged it wrong in the light of his own conscience." ... [S]uch a definition could never be acceptable in a viable criminal law. As the courts have rightly insisted, it is a public standard of wrong that must be used, whether public law or community morality.
What we are saying here is that "knowing the nature and quality of the act or that it is wrong" in the context of insanity (and thus, rationality) means "having the capacity to rationally assess -- define and evaluate -- his own particular act in the light of the relevant public standards of wrong"....
The preceding comments should not be taken to mean that a person is not responsible if he holds irrational beliefs, for that is not the case.... The point is that if the person has a mental makeup which is such that he lacks even the capacity for rationality, then responsibility is vitiated. If he has the capacity but simply fails to use it, responsibility is not precluded.
Application of the Law to this Appeal
The evidence indicated that the accused was suffering from a mental disorder causing paranoid delusion at the time of the killing. The trial judge found that this mental disorder "compelled" the killing. The remaining question was whether the disorder "rendered [the accused] incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong".
The evidence was capable of supporting an affirmative answer to the question of whether the accused was deprived of the capacity to know his act was wrong. First, there was evidence that the accused honestly felt that he was under imminent danger of being killed by Ms. Beaton if he did not kill her first, and that for this reason, believed that the act of killing her was justified. This delusion would have deprived the accused of the ability to know that his act was wrong; in his eyes, it was right. Second (and this may be to say the same thing), there was evidence capable of supporting the conclusion that the accused's mental state was so disordered that he was unable to rationally consider whether his act was right or wrong in the way a normal person would.
The trial judge found that while the accused was generally capable of knowing that the act of killing was wrong, he could not apply that capacity for distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the killing because of his mental disorder. He further found that because of that disorder, Mr. Oommen was deluded into believing that he had no choice but to kill. These findings are consistent with the conclusion that Mr. Oommen's mental disorder deprived him of the capacity to know his act was wrong by the standards of the ordinary person. As the cases make clear s. 16(1) of the Criminal Code embraces not only the intellectual ability to know right from wrong, but the capacity to apply that knowledge to the situation at hand.
Disposition
I would dismiss the appeal and confirm the order directing a new trial.
Appeal dismissed.
Solicitor for the appellant: The Department of Justice, Edmonton.
Solicitors for the respondent: Royal, McCrum, Duckett & Glancy, Edmonton.
