Criminal Defences

Question 1

Criminal Defence

Answer 1

A strategic argument that attempts to challenge the validity and sufficiency of the prosecution’s evidence.

Question 2

Automatism

Answer 2

Unconscious and involuntary contact.

Question 3

Consent

Answer 3

Victim consented to the accused’s act.

Question 4

Duress/Compulsion

Answer 4

The accused has been compelled to act by threats of immediate bodily harm, and they believe at the time of committing the offence that the threats will be carried out.

Question 5

Entrapment

Answer 5

Law enforcement agent induces a person to commit a crime that the person would have been unlikely to commit.

Question 6

Intoxication

Answer 6

Not a defence but can alter the appropriate charge in a given set of circumstances. May be possible to use if it leads to the state of automatism or temporary insanity.

Question 7

Mental Disorder

Answer 7

The test of a mental disorder allows for 3 elements : natural imbecility, a disease of the mind, or an inability to appreciate the nature and quality of an act. One of them must exist at the time of the offence.

Question 8

Natural imbecility

Answer 8

The person’s mental development is not complete and the condition has been caused at birth or by natural decay.

Question 9

Disease of the mind

Answer 9

Schizophrenia, dementia, and paranoia (burden rests on accused to prove this)

Question 10

Provocation

Answer 10

A wrongful act or insult that was sufficient enough to deprive a reasonable person of self-control. The accused must show that they acted on the sudden before the “passion” had time to cool-off.

Question 11

Self-defence

Answer 11

Self-defence falls under the defence of necessity; however, the accused must prove that he/she believed, on reasonable grounds, that they could not preserve themselves otherwise.