| King v. Cogdon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court | Supreme Court of Victoria |
| Decided | December 1950 |
| Court membership | |
| Judge sitting | Mr Justice Smith |
| Keywords | |
King v. Cogdon (1950) is a criminal case heard by the Supreme Court of Victoria in Australia where a woman successfully defended herself against a homicide charge using the defence of (non-insane) automatism. The case was not formally reported but the case has been referenced both by legal scholars and those in other disciplines. [1] [2]
One night, the defendant—Mrs. Cogdon—left her bedroom while sleepwalking. She claims that in this state she saw her 19-year-old daughter Pat being attacked by Korean soldiers. Fearing the worst, while fully in the grip of her sleepwalking, she located an axe and attempted to attack the illusory soldiers. In the process, she killed her daughter.
At trial, Mrs. Cogdon pleaded not guilty. The court heard how Pat had suffered from some neurotic conditions which were characterised as relatively minor, and which her psychiatrist had claimed had been cured. Mrs. Cogdon had suffered a number of strange events in the run up to the killing of Pat: she had suffered a nightmare where her house had been invaded by spiders. She believed the spiders were attacking Pat, entered Pat's room and attempted to violently brush said spiders off Pat's face. This woke Pat up. Mrs. Cogdon told Pat she was just tucking her into bed.
On the night of Pat's death, Mr. Cogdon was out of the house. Mrs. Cogdon offered to take Pat to see a movie, but Pat could not find a movie she wished to watch in the listings in the newspaper. Pat instead decided to stay in and get an early night. As evidence of Mrs. Cogdon's care for her daughter, it was noted she had prepared a hot water bottle for Pat and a glass of warm milk. At trial, Mr. Cogdon also testified that his wife had an excellent relationship with their daughter: "I don't think a mother could have thought any more of her daughter. I think she absolutely adored her." [1]
Before the Cogdon case, no established case law existed for dealing with automatism defences. [3]
The jury found her not guilty.
The M'Naghten rule(s) (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, McNaughton) is a legal test defining the defence of insanity, first formulated by House of Lords in 1843. It is the established standard in UK criminal law, and versions have also been adopted in some US states (currently or formerly), and other jurisdictions, either as case law or by statute. Its original wording is a proposed jury instruction:
that every man is to be presumed to be sane, 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.
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