Automatism as a Defence

Automatism as a Defence PDF

Author: John Rumbold

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-09-20

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 1351787829

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Automatism is a notoriously difficult subject for law students, lawyers and judges. This book explores the science and medicine of sleep disorders and examines how the criminal process deals with such disorders when presented as a defence. It systematically examines the legal doctrines involved, and their implications for the use of the evidence key to establishing automatism, while also exploring the medical conditions that can cause automatism (particularly epilepsy, sleepwalking and diabetes). This book is a valuable resource for law students, lawyers, judges and expert witnesses.

Mental State Defences in Criminal Law

Mental State Defences in Criminal Law PDF

Author: Steven Yannoulidis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-22

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1317097300

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By defining appropriate boundaries for the defence of insanity and the doctrine of automatism, this book presents a consistent and principled approach to the reform of mental state defences. In particular, by undertaking an interdisciplinary analysis of the various factors that inform these defences the book concludes with several practical and robust reform proposals There are three objectives that underpin the suggested reform proposals. First, to ensure that an accused will be able to raise a defence of insanity for involuntary conduct arising from mental disorder even where he or she is aware of the nature and quality of such conduct. Second, to provide principled means by which to establish the criminal responsibility of an accused for conduct performed in a state of drug-induced psychosis. Third, to ensure that criminal conduct arising from a state of ’impaired consciousness’ does not automatically result in the outright acquittal of an accused. In articulating the competing demands that must be balanced in order to secure a principled approach to the reform of mental state defences the book will be of relevance to all common law countries.

Automatism, Insanity, and the Psychology of Criminal Responsibility

Automatism, Insanity, and the Psychology of Criminal Responsibility PDF

Author: Robert F. Schopp

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1991-07-26

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 052140150X

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This is a book about the role that psychological impairment should play in a theory of criminal liability. Criminal guilt in the Anglo-American legal tradition requires both that the defendant committed some proscribed act and did so with intent, knowledge, or recklessness. The second requirement corresponds to the intuitive idea that people should not be punished for something they did not do "on purpose" or if they "did not realize what they were doing." Although intuitive, this underlying idea can be highly controversial in practice, especially in cases involving the insanity defense. This important new book addresses the conceptual and moral foundations of these issues. Unlike many previous works in this area, it addresses the automatism and insanity defenses by examining the types of functional impairment that typical candidates for these defenses actually suffer. What emerges is a much wider conceptual framework that allows us to understand the significance of psychological states and processes for the attribution of criminal responsibility in a manner that is logically coherent, morally defensible, and consistent with research in psychopathology.

Intoxication and Criminal Liability

Intoxication and Criminal Liability PDF

Author: Great Britain. Law Commission

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9780101752626

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This report address the issue of intoxication from alcohol or other drugs and its bearing on the criminal liability, if any, of a person charged with an offence, whether it is alleged that the defendent committed the offence or that he/she took a secondary role in the commission by assisting or encouraging a perpetrator. The focus, in particular, is the extent to which voluntary intoxication should be available to support a 'defence' based on absence of fault.

Legal and Forensic Medicine

Legal and Forensic Medicine PDF

Author: Roy G. Beran

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-09-05

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783642323379

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This is a comprehensive reference text that examines the current state of Legal Medicine, which encompasses Forensic Medicine, in the 21st century. It examines the scope of both legal and forensic medicine, its application and study and has adopted a wide ranging approach including multinational authorship. It reviews the differences between and similarities of forensic and legal medicine, the need for academic qualification, the applications to many and varied fields including international aid, military medicine, health law and the application of medical knowledge to both criminal law and tort/civil law, sports medicine and law, gender and age related factors from obstetrics through to geriatrics and palliative care as well as cultural differences exploring the Christian/Judeo approach compared with that within Islamic cultures, Buddhism and Hinduism. The book looks at practical applications of legal medicine within various international and intercultural frameworks. This is a seminal authoritative text in legal and forensic medicine. It has a multi-author and multinational approach which crosses national boundaries. There is a great interest in the development of health law and legal medicine institutes around the world and this text comes in on the ground floor of this burgeoning discipline and provides the foundation text for many courses, both undergraduate and postgraduate. It defines the place of legal medicine as a specialized discipline.​

Psychiatric Expert Testimony

Psychiatric Expert Testimony PDF

Author: Kenneth J. Weiss

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0199346593

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This is a resource for practitioners intending to introduce cutting-edge science into analyses of mental state, in criminal and civil proceedings. It provides a practical treatment of the science behind human development and the uses of technology as they enter the courtroom.

Evil or Ill?

Evil or Ill? PDF

Author: Lawrie Reznek

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-06-20

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1134705778

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Lawrie Reznek addresses these questions and more in his controversial investigation of the insanity defense in Evil or Ill? Drawing from countless intriguing case examples, he aims to understand the concept of an excuse, and explains why the law excuses certain actions and not others. In his easily accessible and elegant style, he explains that in law, there exists two excuses derived from Aristotle: the excuses of ignorance and compulsion. Reznek, however proposes a third excuse - the excuse of character change. In introducing this third excuse, Reznek raises a controversial possibility - the abolition of the insanity defence.

Mental Condition Defences in the Criminal Law

Mental Condition Defences in the Criminal Law PDF

Author: R. D. Mackay

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780198259954

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Mental condition defences have been used in several high profile and controversial criminal trials in recent years. Indeed, mental abnormality is increasingly an important yet complex course of defence within the criminal trial process. In this timely study, Professor Mackay offers a detailed critical analysis of these defences within the Criminal Law where the accused relies on some form of mental abnormality as a source of defence/negotiation. Topics covered include the defences of automatism, insanity, diminished responsibility and infanticide; self-induced incapacity and the doctrine of fault. It also includes a chapter on unfitness to plead, which although not a defence has been included because of its important relationship to mental disorder within the criminal process. Drawing upon a wide variety of legal, psychiatric and philosophical sources, this is a timely contribution to a controversial and complex topic.