A confession made by a partially intoxicated accused is voluntary if the accused was capable of appreciating the choice to speak or remain silent and of understanding the questions and what was being confessed; the blood alcohol level alone does not establish involuntariness absent evidence of its specific effect on the individual. For sentencing under the new WA murder provisions, double murder involving separate sustained attacks on elderly family members in their home places the offending around the middle of the range, warranting a non-parole period significantly above the statutory minimum. Behavioural disorders arising from dissociative mental states including somnambulism fall within the field of psychiatry, and a psychiatrist's lack of specialisation in sleep medicine goes to weight rather than admissibility.
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