Diminished responsibility is described as one of the three special defences for the criminal offence of murder. This defence is set out in section 2 of the of the Homicide Act 1957 . If this defence is successful in its pleading, then it has the effect of reducing the murder conviction to manslaughter. It is then for the defence to prove whether the individual is liable of murder. Hence, the defence on the balance of probabilities is the evidential burden.
The defendant under the Homicide Act must be suffering from an abnormality of the mind whereas in the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009, an abnormality of mental functioning must be suffered from the defendant. The changes in the wording did not alter applicability of the defence so the precedents are established under the previous law is still valid.
For there to be proof that a defendant suffers from abnormality of mental functioning, the court needs medical evidence. However, the decision will be up to the jury to decide whether the defendant
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Such new or borderline cases are decided by the jury when left. In R v Sutcliffe , Peter Sutcliffe pleaded diminished responsibility when he murdered 13 women. His medical reports suggested that he was a paranoid schizophrenic and the prosecution at that time was prepared to accept the diminished responsibility. The judge in the case said that it was in the publics interest for the jury to resolve the matter. The jury later did and returned the 13 verdicts of the murder. The jury response reflected the publics reaction rather than the rule of law and it was illustrated well that “in practice medical evidence alone may not be sufficient for the defence to succeed.” The jury did not except that there was a “substantially impaired responsibility”, which they considered to be a moral as well as a medical
The jury in trying to let the defendant go considered if there were any circumstances that would provide say as a self-defense claim to justify this horrific crime of murder of two people named Mr. Stephan Swan and Mr. Mathew Butler. Throughout the guilt/innocent phase, the jury believes not to have heard convincing evidence the victims were a threat to the defendant nor a sign the defendant was in fear for his life before he took the victims’ lives.
This case commentary discusses the different approaches used to be taken in Victoria and NSW, presuming that the admissibility of the Evidence in ss 97, 98 and 101 is of the same decision, not separate decision .
Jurors will thoroughly inspect and weigh over the evidence provided, and process any and all possible scenarios through the elements of crime. If the evidence does not support the prosecutor 's argument and the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury must pronounce the defendant not guilty. If questionable or irrelevant evidence is included in the criminal proceeding, it is the duty of the prosecutor or defendant 's counsel to object and insist that the evidence be excluded by the presiding
make there decision, but in the end there was no way that the jury was going to believe a
A second testimony that supports the opposite of the verdict, was the fact that Mr. Ewell never called a doctor after learning of Mayella's injuries. Following the incident, there had not been any physical examination performed by a certified physician. If indeed Mr. Robinson had committed the crime, Mr. Ewell's first instinct would have been to get his daughter checked out. Upon finding his daughter 'assaulted';, he would have wanted to have her injuries treated including the injury that might been caused by rape.
Carcasses attract scavengers. The Guilty Party by O. Henry showcases the untimely death of a girl of twelve, Liz. Above Chrystie Street on the east side, a strange bird stalks the children of the playground. Although people say it’s a stork, locals call it a vulture. In this case, Liz is the carcass that the vulture sets its eyes on.
The criminal justice system takes on a pivotal role in pursuing and preventing crimes in society. When a suspect is caught and then faced with charges for a violent crime, they legally have the right to a fair trial. In order for a criminal proceeding to successfully take place, the defendant must be fully aware of their surroundings, have a basic understanding of court procedures, as well as being capable of defending their one case. Competency to stand trial (CST) is essential for maintaining fairness in the courtroom and producing a just verdict. However, if a defendant is unable to understand legal proceedings due to mental illness or impairment, they must be thoroughly assessed and evaluated before declared incompetent to stand trial. Carrying out a case with a defendant who lacks mental capacity causes numerous issues because the individual is incapable of supplying their lawyers with information regarding their crime or any of the witness testimonies at trial. Lack of comprehensible communication between a defendant and attorney forces an ineffective defense in the case. Mental disturbances in the defendant that may cause disorderly conduct in the court room are considered disruptive and weaken the authority of the legal system. Supreme Court cases that have dealt with competency to stand trial issues over the years have made significant rulings, which have stressed the importance of identifying whether or not a defendant is in fact incompetent.
The Supreme Court of the United States interpretation of the Sixth and a Fourteenth amendment is that defendants, who do not fit the legal description of competence to stand trial, should not be tried while they are in such a condition. Competency to stand trial refers to a person being able to participate as well as assist in his or her own defense. It has to be determined inline with the legal definition given by the laws before an individual can stand trial. The Supreme Court set a specific standard when determining competency to stand trial. The specific standard known as The Dusky Standards, which states that, a person must have sufficient ability to communicate with his or her attorney with a reasonable and rational understanding of the proceedings against him or her. These standards came to be after a mentally ill man named Milton Dusky kidnapped a fifteen year old girl named Alison McQuery, and took her over state lines with two boys she knew which ultimately led to her rape by the two boys (Dusky,1960). There are considerations that are made with respect to the statutes governing a Jurisdiction, and the criteria under law for the particular case. The adjudicative competence of the defendant has to be exhausted in the quest seeking to determine whether he or she is competent to stand trial. This refers not only to the defendant’s ability to take part in the procedures of the courtroom, but also for the other related procedures during the prosecution. All data must be taken into account when determining if someone is competent to stand trial. This data is not from the defendant in question, but rather from other parties who will help give the court an insight into him or her. They include reports from psychiatrists and othe...
“Whether a killer acted with the deliberation and premeditation required for first degree murder can only be determined on a case by case basis. The need for deliberation and premeditation does not mean that the perpetrator must contemplate at length or plan far ahead of the murder.”
...tood. This problem has persisted through many cases, clearly highlighting the lack of expertise of juries, and if they do not understand the process and basic rules, then they cannot be a reliable body in determining innocence. Jurors incapability of following evidence inevitably leads to guess work with jury’s finding defendants guilty because ‘he looked like he did it’ and ‘he looks like a nonce so he must of done it’. Moreover, cases have been reported of incredulous juries using absurd methods to ascertain a verdict, like in R v Young 1995, where a Ouija Board was used to determine if the defendant was guilty or not. It is clear that it would be better and far more effective to abolish the jury system, and leave the experts and qualified legal professionals to try defendants, as they understand the process and possess the expertise to make balanced decisions.
Throughout history mental health has played an important role in the legal system, specifically regarding matters of competency and sanity. Issues concerning competency to stand trial have grown throughout history and cover a large breadth of topics including, but not limited to: predictor variables, malingering, mental retardation, competency standards in execution, and the validity of competency assessments. The issue of competency in legal proceedings is rooted in English Common Law as early as the 17th century (CITE- ALawPsych&pol). Common law states that the standard for competency to stand trial requires that the defendant understand the proceedings against him or her and be able to assist in their defense (Cite-lackinsight) William Blackstone alluded to competency to stand trial in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1783), which questioned the abilities of mentally impaired defendants, then considered to be “mad”, to plead with the “caution that he ought” (CITE-). The inability for a defendant to exercise caution goes against their right to a fair trial because they cannot render decisions necessary to creating a defense. Although it was realized early on that competency is an important matter preceding trial, a legal standard for competency was not defined until 1960 in the case of Dusky v. United States.
v. Singh case was one of the most prominent cases of provocation as a defence in Australia which manifested the urgency for an immediate law reform. This court case involved a man pleading not guilty of murder but guilty to manslaughter, on the grounds of provocation for the homicide of his wife. The man claimed that his wife provoked him, and as a result, she was the reason for her own death and not him. This may seem absurd and blatant to the common individual, but this was a legitimate form of argument before the law was reformed. This individual was successful in abusing a loophole in the provocation defence to reduce his murder sentence to a manslaughter sentence based on the decision of a jury. The provocation defence was based on the questioning of whether an “ordinary” person would have committed the same misdeed when put under a similar circumstance. This questioning is evidently subjective as an “ordinary” person can be interpreted differently by different individuals. Furthermore, provocation defence was commonly used in domestic violence cases, usually consisting of two people. If one person, in this case, was a victim of a homicide, he or she is unable to give his or her perspective on the case. Therefore, the case is immediately subjected to biased views as you are only able to rely on one person’s version of the scenario if there were no other witnesses. This blatant flaw is further reinforced by the fact that there are often no witnesses in domestic violence
According to Jennifer Feehan, a notable authors, it is nationally “estimated that less than 1% of all criminal defendants enter insanity pleas in felony cases, and only a fraction of those are found to have been insane at the time they committed the offense” (Feehan 1). The insanity plea is one of the many issues that troubles the American Justice System and is a controversial topic to many. Why is this a topic so popular if it is such a rare defense used in court? One possible answer may be that the public may misinterpret what actually happens to someone who is found “not guilty by the reason of insanity” (NGRI) (Gilligan 135). The insanity plea is a defense mechanism used in trial to say that the defendant is not responsible and not consciously aware of what he did at the time of the crime. Some
In Criminal cases, the general principle is that when it comes to proving the guilt of an accused person, the burden of proving this rests with the prosecution . In the case of Woolmington v DPP , it was stated in the judgment of Lord Sankey that; “Throughout the web of the English Criminal law one golden thread is always to be seen, that is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt subject to….. the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception”. From the Judgment of Lord Sankey, the following circumstances where the accused bears the legal burden of proof in criminal cases were established; where the accused pleads the defence of insanity, where a statute or Act of Parliament expressly imposes the legal burden of proof on the defence, and where a statute or Act of Parliament impliedly imposes the legal burden of proof on the defence. An accused person will also bear the legal burden of proof of the statutory defence of diminished responsibility which is covered by section 2(2) Homicide Act 1957. In the cases of Lambert Ali and Jordan , the Court of Appeal held that imposing the legal burden of proof of proving diminished responsibility on the defence does not infringe Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In his proposal “Severe Personality-Disordered Defendants and the Insanity Plea in the United States,” George Palermo, a forensic psychiatrist, presents his thesis for the insanity plea to be reversed back to its previous definition. People who had personality disorders that could cause them to become psychotic for even a brief moment used to be eligible to receive the verdict not guilty by reason of insanity, before the United States restricted it to only people affected by mental illnesses. A mental illness is a disorder such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, which can cause a person to be unable to determine whether an act is right or wrong. It d...