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.

Mental Condition Defences and the Criminal Justice System

Mental Condition Defences and the Criminal Justice System PDF

Author: Alan Reed

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2015-02-27

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 1443875694

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Criminal law has struggled to keep pace with developments in psychiatry, both in substantive and procedural terms, and it is widely recognised that increased inter-disciplinary discussion of mental condition defences is required in order to address this gap between the law and psychiatry. This edited collection comes at a time of review of this sensitive area of criminal law. The Law Commission for England and Wales recently placed its evaluation of insanity, automatism and intoxication on hold, while it considers the law on unfitness to plead. These reviews are set against the backdrop of earlier Law Commission reports on partial defences to murder which informed significant changes that were made to the law in this area under sections 52–56 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Recent developments in case law in this substantive area illustrate not only the importance of the role of the medical expert, but also that reform in this area is informed by ongoing inter-disciplinary research. This collection brings together medical and legal conceptions of mental disorder in order to appraise the operation of mental condition defences. In this respect, it provides invaluable and original insights into mental condition defences and criminal law.

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.

General Defences in Criminal Law

General Defences in Criminal Law PDF

Author: Alan Reed

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1317129555

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The law relating to general defences is one of the most important areas in the criminal law, yet the current state of the law in the United Kingdom reveals significant problems in the adoption of a consistent approach to their doctrinal and theoretical underpinnings, as exemplified by a number of recent developments in legislation and case law. A coherent and joined-up approach is still missing. This volume provides an analysis of the main contentious areas in British law, and proposes ways forward for reform. The collection includes contributions from leading experts across various jurisdictions. Part I examines the law in the United Kingdom, with specialist contributions on Irish and Scottish law. Part II consists of contributions by authors from a number of foreign jurisdictions, all written to a common research grid for maximum comparability, which provide a wider background of how other legal systems treat problems relating to general defences in the context of the criminal law, and which may serve as points of reference for domestic law reform.

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.

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.

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