Supreme court to rule on Calgary magic mushrooms-fuelled assault case

The country's top court is set to rule on a Calgary case involving a university student who, while naked and high on mushrooms, attacked a professor with a broom handle after breaking into her home.

Former Mount Royal University student Matthew Brown was charged with break-and-enter and aggravated assault after a 2018 incident that left Janet Hamnett with broken bones in her hands.

It's one of three cases the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) is ruling on Friday that deal with whether the defence of extreme intoxication to the point of automatism is available to those who chose to take drugs and then end up committing acts of violence.

Two Ontario cases — known as Sullivan and Chan — were argued together and are also set to be released Friday morning as the SCC clarifies the law around non-mental disorder automatism. 

In those cases, two men — David Sullivan and Thomas Chan — consumed drugs and then, in states of psychosis, stabbed family members. Sullivan injured his mother while Chan killed his father.

In his case, Brown estimated he took about 2.5 grams of magic mushrooms and drank about 12-14 ounces of vodka plus a "few beers" before attacking Hamnett in her home, where he "smashed" her hands repeatedly.

Twenty-eight years ago, Parliament made changes to the Criminal Code, prohibiting the use of self-induced intoxication defence but resulting in "not a very well-worded section," which "has led to judges coming to different interpretations of it," wrote University of Calgary law professor Lisa Silver in a blog post about the cases. 

Silver said in her post that the SCC needed to weigh in on the law in that area because judges continued to arrive at different conclusions. 

Ahead of Brown's 2019 trial, a Calgary judge struck down the legislation that prevents the defence being used in similar cases, paving the way for lawyer Sean Fagan to argue his client was incapable of forming the required intent to commit the crimes. 

In May 2020, Brown, described by Fagan as "a good man who did something completely out of character," was acquitted by a superior court judge following trial. 

At the time, the case was believed to be the only one in Canada involving a successful defence of extreme intoxication while on magic mushrooms.

But 14 months later, the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned the acquittal, convicting Brown of aggravated assault after ruling he must bear the consequences of taking illegal drugs "in reckless disregard of the possible risks."

Fagan took the case to the Supreme Court of Canada, arguing in November that the country's top court should reinstate Brown's acquittal.

In their 47-page factum, Fagan and co-counsel Michelle Biddulph argued Brown could not appreciate the nature and consequences of his actions and therefor should not face criminal conviction "for conduct that they were not aware of or could not control."