The Supreme Court ruled that a trial judge could not replace an accused man’s guilty plea with a not guilty plea so that an insanity defence could be investigated, where the man was fit to plead and chose not to raise that defence.
The ruling came in a consultative case stated from the Western Circuit. The question arose after the accused pleaded guilty to intentionally or maliciously causing harm to a man in Castlebar on 20 November 2002. The case stated described a knife attack near St Mary’s Psychiatric Hospital that caused serious injuries. The accused was remanded in custody while sentencing was adjourned.
The Circuit Court judge had psychiatric reports before him but had made no determination about the accused’s mental state at the time of the offence or at the hearings. He asked whether he could or should refuse the guilty plea and enter a not guilty plea if there were substantial grounds to believe the accused may have been legally insane when the acts occurred.
The accused’s counsel submitted that he was entitled to choose his plea and wished to retain the guilty plea to obtain a definite sentence. Counsel said there was no longer an outstanding question about his fitness to plead. The Director of Public Prosecutions argued that a judge had jurisdiction to refuse the plea. The Attorney General supported that position, describing the plea as potentially “a deception and a sham”. Those were submissions, not findings of the Supreme Court.
Delivering the judgment, Mr Justice Fennelly said insanity was a defence and the burden of proving it rested on the defence. An accused who was sane when entering a plea could choose whether to raise the defence that he had not been sane when the offence was committed. If he did not raise it, and the prosecution proved the offence beyond reasonable doubt, he could be convicted.
The judgment distinguished that issue from fitness to plead. It noted that the prosecution could raise fitness where an accused appeared unfit, but said it was unnecessary to decide the applicable burden of proof in this case.
The Supreme Court answered the question posed in the case stated as proposed by Mr Justice Geoghegan, with Mr Justice Fennelly agreeing with his judgment. It did not impose a sentence or determine what weight should be given to the accused’s psychiatric history. The case was to return to the Circuit Court judge for completion, including sentencing.