A judge in Calgary, Canada has handed down what may be the first acquittal to a violent crime for a student who attacked a professor under the influence of magic mushroom or Psilocybin. Matthew Brown entered the home of Professor Janet Hamnett entirely naked and high on magic mushrooms. He then attacked her with a broomstick, leaving her with severe injuries. Nevertheless, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Michele Hollins found him intoxicated to the point of “automatism” and acquitted him.
In January 2018, Brown was drinking with some friends and they began taking magic mushrooms. He had previously taken magic mushrooms and, on this occasion, is assumed to have digested about 2.5 grams. He began to act odd and went back and forth to bed before dashing out naked around 3:45 am. Fifteen minutes later, he burst into the home of Hamnett and began to attack her. She eventually was able to lock herself in the bathroom and then escape to a neighbor’s home.
A student at Mount Royal University, Brown, 29, was charged with assault with a weapon and break-and-enter. He is a hockey player at the school where Hamnett teaches public relations. However, police say that the school connection was a coincidence.
Brown was apologetic throughout the trial and after the verdict. He had no history of violence.
In the United States, it is highly doubtful that Brown would have been given an acquittal. Drunk drivers and drug users are routinely sentenced for their offenses despite their intoxication or physical condition. However, the court in this case concluded that the magic mushrooms robbed Brown of volitional choice and control.
The case stands in contrast with research suggesting that magic mushroom make people less likely to commit violent crimes. Yet, some cases of bizarre assaults have been reported.
What do you think?
If you agree with the court on the loss of control (and magic mushrooms are legal), should Brown still be sentenced for these crimes?
Never paid a dime for magic mushrooms. The candy man handed it out for free at live shows:
Jefferson Airplane
Quicksilver Messenger Service
The Byrds
Greateful Dead
Security was tight & run by the Hells Angels
The perp is a good-looking blond jock, a former captain of his college hockey team. Had he been a member of the nearby Indian Reservation, he would be in prison. The only reason he stopped beating the victim was he beat her so hard the broom handle broke. This reminds me of the incident of the Stanford swimmer who was given a slap on the wrist for rape.
Had he been a member of the nearby Indian Reservation, he would be in prison. The only reason he stopped beating the victim was he beat her so hard the broom handle broke. This reminds me of the incident of the Stanford swimmer who was given a slap on the wrist for rape.
Rubbish. The judge fancies herself an advocate for the ‘mentally ill’.
As for the Stanford swimmer, he did not penetrate her and its a reasonable wager he was given a light sentence because she’d left voluntarily with him and both of them were three sheets to the wind.
This is like what they used to say about alcoholics. Crises are the only thing that has a chance of getting them off the sauce. It is bad things happening to them that have the best chance of breaking thru whatever lies they tell themselves to keep on being a drunk. That is why the old rehabber guys were all for severe DWI penalties for example.
Same here. The only thing that has a chance of breaking the delusions of the liberals and sjws is bad things happening, preferably to them. So I cheer this event! Liberals love them some drugs and so this is the kind of stuff that happens. Vote for stupid judges and get stupid decisions. Vote for stupid politicians and get stupid laws and stupid judges. Believe stupid delusional things and you get no-bail laws and druggies pooping on your front porch and looting your stores.
I hope NYC turns into a cesspool of poop and lawlessness. The sooner the better.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
leaving her with severe injuries.
Not precisely. She had to have physical therapy on her right arm and hand, which haven’t healed entirely as yet. (The article doesn’t say they were broken).
By the way, this is the fathead judge responsible:
https://www.cba.org/News-Media/News/2019/March/The-Honourable-Justice-Michele-H-Hollins,-Q-C-To
What a happy story! Liberal chickens coming home to roost!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
If you voluntarily consume it, you are responsible for your actions. I appreciate that he was apologetic, however some jail time is going to help reinforce that.
There is no way this decision stands. This woman’s rights were violated. Acquittal just made the citizens of that country less secure.
Automatism
Disinhibition as a result of consuming drink and/or drugs is not automatism. Furthermore, automatism is not available to a defendant who has induced an acute state of involuntary behaviour as a result of his own voluntary consumption of intoxicants: R v Coley; R v McGhee; R v Harris [2013] Crim. L.R. 923 CA.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/intoxication
So the judge ignored the law? I hope Canada has a Commission on Judicial Performance or some similar body that can rule on her fitness for the bench.
This is an outrageous decision. I hope the prosecutor challenges it and the judge is reprimanded. The defendant belongs in jail.
As a Canadian,I find this ruling embarrassing.Hopefully the Alberta Court of Appeal will override it.Maybe Justice Hollins would like a move to your 9th Circuit which is routinely slammed on appeal.
Anyone who voluntarily consumes alcohol or drugs should be held accountable for any adverse consequences to others. I would sentence him to two years in prison.
The courts thinking was entirely false and illogical. Mushrooms, and other inanimate objects cannot “rob(bed) Brown of volitional choice and control.” Inanimate objects have no ability to make decision. Which suggests this court is an inanimate object (?) He robbed himself and thus he is entirely responsible. So disturbing that he was acquitted. Next time he can just blame it on the broom.
My high school art teacher had a laminated poster behind her desk with pithy phrases on it. Among them: “Things said while drunk have been thought out beforehand”.
Speaking in defense of my country, I assure you that very few if any Canadians would agree with this judgment. Unfortunately, we don’t get a say in how our judges make their decisions. Personally, I think the state of intoxication should’ve had some effect on sentencing, but most certainly not on the actual guilt of this man.
Yes, it is a shameful verdict.
Canada is not a serious country. Canada also manifests the liberal Id for the edification of those of us south of the border.
One reason there’s been a constituency for crude devices like mandatory minima and three-strikes laws is that judges cannot be trusted with discretion over sentencing (or discretion over much of anything else). They cannot, in large measure, because they are transmitters of memes abroad in our professional-managerial bourgeoisie, especially the word-merchant segment thereof (who work in occupations without robust operational measures of competence). They tend in a haphazard way toward the worldview of social workers and school psychologists, occupational segments which do little good and whose dispositions are disastrous in the realm of criminal justice.
This is a shameful verdict.
Were she protected by s Second Amendment she could have protected herself and this creep would no longer be a problem to anyone. By the way; I’ve done mushrooms, LSD and mescaline during my misspent youth. Neither I or any of my associates ever had the reaction this perp hides behind.
Good point. A .38 in a bedside drawer would have given her six chances to avoid an horrific experience. A revolver is the best choice for self-defense because it doesn’t jam when you need it most. Just point and pull the trigger.
We should ask the folks at the CIA to give their opinion. They had a huge study (commiting crimes themselves) on humans when they had patients in mental hospitals subjected to LSD. That was The Mkultra Program. Perhaps spelled MkUltra.
The defendant here should be shot in the head till dead.
More break down of civilization at the hands of woke judges. It is odd that a female judge would take such a anti-female position. Still ideology is a powerful motivator to make atrocious decisions. Voltaire had it right about “those who can make you believe absurdities.”
That the victim was female was incidental.
Typically, it’s relevant to a female judge in the states.
The victim is a middle-aged woman. She has likely permanent physical and psychological injuries. The perp is a young, blond good-looking male; a college athlete. Consciously or sub-consciously, the judge decided that the perp’s interests in avoiding punishment and a criminal conviction on his record exceeded the victim’s interests in seeing justice done. I don’t believe a male judge would have bought the perp’s b.s. defense, but he may nonetheless have been swayed by the perp’s status as a white, male college athlete, as was the case in the Stanford rape trial.
She was 66 at the time, so not middle-aged.
If a 66 year-old is considered elderly, the attacker should also have been charged with elder abuse. Not that it would have made a difference to this judge…
You are right to say that drug intoxication is not a get out of jail free card. Moreover the burden of proof for insanity defenses should be on the defendant. I’ve noticed that on ESPN the commentators frequently claim that treatment with no punishment is the correct response to drug and drinking crimes and misbehaviors of sports stars. They are harming society by excusing evil. Volition is not defined by continual consciousness of the consequences of one’s action. Volitions span conscious episodes. And the actions are “follow throughs” of prior explicit decisions. In this case the volition continues after the willful action of taking the drug. If he is to now act responsibly he needs to accept the consequences.
He should be guilty of fungicide. But Canada’s court system proves that all things are fungible. Some outcomes are just plain Psyli.