Opinion ID: 2351872
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Voluntary Conduct

Text: Pursuant to 17-A M.R.S.A. § 31 (1983) a person commits a crime only if he engages in voluntary conduct. The Model Penal Code has defined voluntary in terms of the meaning of involuntary actions: reflexes, convulsions, movements during unconsciousness or sleep or actions resulting from hypnotic suggestion. MODEL PENAL CODE § 2.01(2) (1985). We have accepted the following definition of voluntary: To be voluntary an act must be the result of an exercise of defendant's conscious choice to perform [it], and not the result of reflex, convulsion, or other act over which a person has no control. State v. Mishne, 427 A.2d 450, 458 (Me.1981). See also State v. Flick, 425 A.2d 167, 171 (Me.1981) (legal concept of voluntariness pursuant to section 31 distinguishes such conduct from reflex or nonvolitional action). The record reflects no evidence proffered by a witness or offered at the time of the trial from which the jury reasonably could find that Christine's conduct on April 28, 1992, was involuntary.