Criticisms of Defenses
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- Created by: carolinemather
- Created on: 09-01-17 18:20
Intro to Insanity
- Rules were established in M'Naghten
- Defect of reason
- Result of a disease of the mind
- Caused D to not know the nature or quality of his act or that what he was doing is wrong
- Law commision insanity and automatism discussion paper 2013 criticised the law surrounding this
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1.Definition of Insanity
- Definition of insanity is legal and not medical
- defect of reason and disease of the mind mean little to medical professionals
- Insanity would be best dealt with outside the criminal justice system
- People can be deemed to be legally insane who would not be seen as mentally ill
- Diabetics- Hennessy
- Hardened arteries- Kemp
- Butler Committee- not guilty by reason of medical disorder
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2. Burden & Standard
- There is a reversal in the normal burden and standard of proof
- Goes against article 6 of the ECHR which states D is innocent until proven guilty
- Butler Committee- altering this so the prosecution would have to prove in the mens rea
- Jury should not have to decide insanity
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3. Legally insane without mental illness
- People can be deemed to be legally insane without being mentally ill
- Hennessy and Kemp
- Sleepwalkers as in R v Thomas- disease of the mind
- suggests that diabetics and sleepwalkers are a danger to the public
- most of these people can control their illness with medication
- Law may not need to intervene
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Nature and Quality
- People who understand nature and quality of their acts are excluded
- Sutcliffe, Windle, Byrne
- Those who the defence is aimed at are unable to rely on it
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Position of Diabetics
- R v Sullivan- insanity as the disease itself caused the issue
- R v Quick- automatism as the medication was an external cause
- Quick got a complete defence and acquittal from automatism
- Hennessy got a hospital order for insanity
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Social Stigma
- Bad enough to class mentally ill people as insane
- inappropriate to label diabetics and epileptics as insane
- 30 pleas of insanity a year
- large proportion of prisoners have mental health problems
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Reform of Insanity
- 1953 Royal Commission wanted to include uncontrollable urges eg r v byrne but gov brought in DR which only affects murder
- Judge does not have to give hospital order r v thomas
- LCDP 2013- new defence of not criminally responsible by reason of recognised medical condition- accused would not be criminally responsible where he lacked capacity to conform to law- RMC total lack of capacity to reason, understand wrong or control physical actions
- Available for any kinds of offence
- No simple acquittal but a special verdict
- Elevated evidential burden should lie on accused to raise elements of th defence- for the prosecution to disprove the defence.
- Accused must adduce evidence from 2 experts
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Intro to intoxication
- Contradictions in the law
- Public policy based
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Voluntary and Involuntary
- Law draws a distinction between these because voluntary intoxication is reckless
- involuntary intoxication can still lead to guilty verdict as drunk intent is still intent
- Kingston (IV I) unfair to punish someone who is themselves a victim of a crime
- R v Hardie- voluntarily took tablets but was not punished as he did not expect to be intoxicated by valium
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Basic and specific intent
- In majewski it walk held there is no defence in voluntary intoxication in basic as getting drunk is recklessness therefore MR
- This ignores that AR and MR must coincide- grady- drinking may occur hours before the act- when he was getting drunk he would not have considered the risk of commiting a crime
- Janet Loveless- contemporaneity rules
- ignores the premise that prosecution must prove MR
- replaces legal definition of reckless with dictionary one
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Corresponding basic intent crimes
- Intoxication is not intended to be a complete defnece
- Lipman- used intoxication as a defence to murder so he was convicted of manslaughter
- Some specific intent crimes have no corresponding basic offnece
- intoxication would be a complete defence to theft
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Basic or specific
- can be issues when judges are deciding if a crime is basic or specific
- R v Heard- sexual offences act 2003 does not clarify basic or specific intent
- attempted **** is specific but **** is basic
- intoxication is a complete defence to attempted **** but not to ****
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Reform
- Butler committe wanted a new offence of dangerous intoxication
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