Weird Weldon: You’re Getting Very Defensive
- Shawn Courtney
- Oct 7
- 2 min read

For this Retrograde edition of The Weldon Times, Weird Weldon is jumping back in time to a pre-Charter criminal case involving a hypnotic police interrogation. Although once a genuine concern, Canadians no longer have to worry about resisting against subliminal manipulation from the police (see R v Trochym, 2007 SCC 6).
Sounds defensive for someone with nothing to hide
But what about in the past? In R v Horvath, [1979] 2 SCR 376, a brutal late-night murder led police to suspect the victim's son. The lead interrogator spoke with the suspect and eventually obtained a confession, the location of the murder weapon, and his bloodied clothing.
The trial judge described the interrogation as "the most skillful example of police interrogation that has ever come to my attention in 36 years as a lawyer and judge... to have a police officer as intellectually adroit as this one interrogating prisoners is, I think, highly desirable — a matter of congratulation rather than any criticism."
So, why then was the accused acquitted at the Supreme Court of Canada?
Accidental hypnosis. Yes, dear readers, let me offer you this word of caution if you happen to work alongside law enforcement: beware of being too good at your job.
"Why does everything you say sound like a threat?"
The Crown's own psychiatrist confirmed that the investigator’s style of questioning and tone of voice induced a hypnotic state in the accused. The interrogator managed to accidentally hypnotize his suspect without any experience or training in hypnosis.
Interestingly, the majority did not consider the issue of hypnosis in their decision, despite the fact that the finding of hypnosis was the explicit reason why the trial judge acquitted the accused:
"Had Dr. Stephenson not given the evidence of an hypnotic state, I would have, with some misgivings, admitted this statement. It is the accumulation of all the factors […] that have caused me to reject the statement. This ruling is given with very real regret that police work as skillful as this should end in frustration of its purpose."
Luckily, in their concurring opinion, Beetz J. and Pratte J. undertook a fascinating and in-depth review of hypnosis and its effect on the voluntariness of a statement:
"Horvath's hysterical amnesia or repression of the memory that he had killed his mother had been involuntary […] Once he had become conscious of the painful material through hypnosis and because of the interrogator's almost irresistible appeal to unburden himself, the telling of it was essentially a voluntary act, although he was in a light hypnotic state up to the end of the second monologue."
So what, dear readers, do we take from this edition of Weird Weldon? In earnest, I suggest that, even in the face of insurmountable facts, a clever lawyer with the courage to dabble in the weird can snatch an acquittal from the jaws of conviction. Don’t be afraid to scan the depths of the human psyche next time you need help finding your legal inspiration.
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