## Facts

- Seth Grant spent about 2.5 hours at a tavern and consumed four whisky-and-cola drinks.
- Police responded to a disturbance and attempted to arrest a resisting patron as a crowd gathered and became hostile.
- Grant suddenly rushed through the crowd and struck Officer Raymond Vonderahe twice in the face after leaping using a parking meter for leverage.
- Grant was arrested and taken to jail; about an hour later, a jailer observed symptoms consistent with a grand mal seizure.
- Grant was hospitalized for several days and had a documented history of epilepsy, including grand mal and psychomotor seizures.
- A psychiatrist examined Grant the next morning, diagnosed acute alcoholism and epilepsy, and opined that Grant was experiencing a psychomotor seizure during the attack and lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to law.
- A jury convicted Grant of aggravated battery and obstructing a police officer; the trial court entered judgment on both and imposed a prison sentence on the aggravated battery conviction.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence required the trial court to instruct the jury on insanity based on testimony linking epilepsy and intoxication to an inability to appreciate criminality or conform conduct to law.
2. Whether the trial court committed reversible error by not giving a separate instruction that an involuntary act (automatism during an epileptic seizure) is not criminally punishable.
3. Whether any instructional error warranted a new trial.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the appellate court and affirmed the trial court’s judgment, reinstating the convictions.
- The court held the evidence did not require an insanity instruction because the record did not establish a qualifying mental disease or defect under Illinois law.
- The court held that the absence of a separate involuntary-act (automatism) instruction was not reversible error on this record.
- The court relied on the jury’s ability to credit eyewitness descriptions of Grant’s conduct as appearing upset but otherwise normal and to reject the expert’s conclusion.

## Legal Principles

- Criminal liability requires a voluntary act; an involuntary act is not a culpable act.
- Insanity under Illinois law requires evidence of a mental disease or defect; transient seizure-related behavior, without more, may be insufficient to require an insanity instruction.
- Automatism (seizure-related involuntary conduct) is analytically distinct from insanity because it concerns the act requirement rather than criminal responsibility based on mental condition.
- A trial court has discretion to give only those defense instructions supported by the evidence; omission of a specialized instruction is not reversible absent prejudice in light of the instructions given and the record as a whole.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed Grant’s convictions, concluding that the evidence did not compel an insanity instruction and that the failure to provide a separate automatism instruction did not deprive the jury of a fair basis to decide whether Grant’s conduct was voluntary.


People v. Grant, 71 Ill. 2d 551, 377 N.E.2d 4 (Ill. 1978)