A Long Motor Run on a Dark Night: Reconstructing HM Advocate v Ritchie
| Autor: | Jenifer M Ross |
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| Rok vydání: | 2010 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Edinburgh Law Review. 14:193-204 |
| ISSN: | 1755-1692 1364-9809 |
| DOI: | 10.3366/elr.2010.0002 |
| Popis: | In establishing the defence of automatism in Scots law, the five-judge court in Ross v HM Advocate1 reinstated the authority of a decision from more than 60 years’ earlier, HM Advocate v Ritchie.2 A key requirement of the defence, as stated by the High Court in Ross, is that the state of automatism must have been caused by a factor external to the accused, and Ritchie was approved on the basis that the accused’s dissociation in that case had been caused by exhaust fumes from a motor car. Investigation in the court records and contemporary newspaper reports, however, shows that this was not the cause of the dissociation. This article discusses the factual and legal basis of the decision in Ritchie and considers the potential implications for the automatism defence. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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