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    Ipse Dixit: Eadie

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    STiX ZA

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    Ipse Dixit: Eadie

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    STiX ZA
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    Ipse Dixit: Eadie

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    STiX ZA

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    criminal incapacity (that is, provocation, emotional stress, fear or anger), he acted

    voluntarily, but merely lacked criminal capacity. He would also have to adduce
    evidence that casts a reasonable doubt on the voluntariness of his conduct. In
    reaching a conclusion, the court will consider the evidence against its own
    experience of human behaviour. In Eadie, Navsa JA made the following statement
    (in para 64):
    Part of the problem appears to me to be a too-ready acceptance of the
    accused's ipse dixit [the accused's own account] concerning his state of mind.
    It appears to me to be justified to test the accused's evidence about his state of
    mind, not only against his prior and subsequent conduct but also against the
    court's experience of human behaviour and social interaction. Critics may
    describe this as principle yielding to policy. In my view, it is an acceptable
    method for testing the veracity of an accused's evidence about his state of
    mind and as a necessary brake to prevent unwarranted extensions of the
    defence.

    476Whether the court in Eadie introduced an objective, normative criterion in the


    otherwise subjective test for criminal capacity, or merely applied existing rules of
    evidence that relate to inferences drawn from objective facts to determine
    subjective intention, is not altogether clear. In Snyman's view, the judgment is
    based on policy considerations that the law is opposed to affording a
    person who has killed another after being provoked by the latter
    106
    a complete defence, that is, a complete acquittal (Criminal Law 238). This
    means that if a person is charged with murder and raises the defence of
    provocation, he will be excused by the law only partially, and still be convicted of
    culpable homicide.
    477Until there is more clarity in our law on how the judgment in Eadie is to be
    interpreted, we submit the following: Before 2002, the defence of non-pathological
    criminal incapacity was not limited to cases in which, as a result of provocation
    or emotional stress, X briefly lacked criminal capacity. It also applied to situations
    in which he lacked capacity owing to other factors, such as intoxication, fear or
    shock. In our opinion, the Eadie case should be limited to cases in which X alleges
    that it is as a result of provocation or emotional stress that he lacked capacity. If
    he alleges that he momentarily lacked capacity owing to other factors, such as
    intoxication, the defence (of non-pathological criminal incapacity) still exists.
    However, if, as in the Eadie case, X alleges that he lacked capacity as a result of
    provocation or emotional stress, his defence should be treated as one of sane
    automatism.

    GLOSSARY
    478ipse dixit 479the accused's own account

    480mens rea 481literally "guilty mind"; in


    practice, the culpability requirement

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