The country’s highest court has concluded extreme intoxication can be used as a defense in assault cases, ruling in favour of a former Mount Royal University hockey player who attacked a professor while high on magic mushrooms.
In a decision released Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada reversed a July 2021 ruling by the Alberta Court of Appeal that struck down an acquittal of Matthew Brown, who attacked an MRU professor in her home while high on psilocybin in 2018.
The court unanimously concluded Section 33.1 of the Criminal Code is unconstitutional. That section, passed by Parliament in 1995, was specifically written to prevent extreme intoxication as a defense in violent cases. The Crown used Section 33.1 during Brown’s trial to argue against his use of automatism as a defense.
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