F. Irresistible Impulse

• Author: Kent Roach
• Profession: Faculty of Law and Centre of Criminology. University of Toronto
• Pages: 300-301

Page 300

Canadian courts have long refused to recognize irresistible impulse as a separate category of the insanity defence. At the same time, however, evidence of an irresistible impulse, like evidence of delusions, may be relevant in determining whether an accused otherwise qualifies for the mental disorder defence.⁸²Categorical rejections of the relevance of irresistible impulsion to the mental disorder defence would be especially inadvisable given the Court’s statements that convicting a person who did not act through a voluntary expression of free will would violate the principle of fundamental justice that a person should not be convicted for a morally involuntary action. The section 16 defence should protect those who act in an morally involuntary manner because of a mental disorder and a person who faces a genuine irresistible impulse because of a mental disorder may well qualify for the defence.⁸³Evidence of "irresistible impulse" may also be relevant to proof of non-mental disorder automatism or of the required mens rea. In a case of multiple killings where the accused testified that he "lost control," the trial judge was correct in telling the jury to consider such testimony in relation to the Crown’s burden to prove intent in relation to

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each killing and in relation to the accused’s claims to have acted in a disassociative state.⁸⁴

[82] Abbey, above note 67; Chaulk, above note 14.

[83] Bouchard-Lebrun, above note 36...