Diminished Responsibility Flashcards
What is diminished responsibility?
Special partial defence where D performs the AR of murder with the MR for murder but there are mitigating circumstances that allow for special partial defence
=avoids the mandatory life sentence of murder instead D will plead voluntary manslaughter with discretionary sentence with max life imprisonment
What act is diminished responsibility found in?
S.2 Homicide Act 1957 which was amended by S.52 Coroners and Justice Act 2009 following the law commissions proposal in their Murder, Manslaughter and Infanticide Report in 2006 which stated that the “definition of DR is now badly out of date”
What are the 4 components to diminished responsibility found in S.2 Homicide Act 1957?
Abnormality of the mental functioning
Recognised medical condition
Substantially impairers D’s ability to: understand the nature of conduct, form a rational judgment or exercise self control
Provides an explanation for the killing
(ARSE)
What must the D prove?
The burden of proof is on the D to prove that they were suffering from DR at the time of the killing, D must prove this on the civil standard (balance of probabilities)
Though sentencing is discretionary how many who plead Voluntary manslaughter get life sentences?
15%
How does someone plea guilty to Voluntary manslaughter?
Originally though that DR had to be proven by the jury every time and could not jsut be accepted by a judge
=Now
D may plead guilty to VM on the grounds of DR “where the medical evidence showed perfectly plainly that the plea” was one that could properly be accepted (cox)
What percentage of guilty pleas to VM are accepted?
80% though judges are not obliged to accept Ds plea and can still leave it to be determined by a jury, where the plea is rejected and the case goes to trial around 60% are convicted of murder
What happened in the case of Sutcliffe?
Case example of where guilty plea for VR on grounds of DR went to jury and jury convicts of murder
Case facts:
Peters sutcliffe was charged with murdering 13 women and attempted murder 7 others. He claimed he was hearing voices and was ordered to kill prostitutes. Despite 4 psychiatrists confirming diagnoises for paranoid schizophrenia and the prosecution willing to except the plea the judge refused and allowed it to go to trial where the jury rejected DR and convicted of murder
What case confirmed that medical evidence must exist to succeed?
Dix
“pratical necessity if the defence is to begin to run at all”
What is the “Abnormality of the mental functioning”?
Pre-reformed phrase = “abnormality of mind” which the accepted definition came from Byrne as “a state of mind so different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable man would term abnormal”
=Post reform definition remains the same
It is entirely up to the jury to decide what is out of the norm and does not need to have a degree of permanence or existed since birth it just needs to be operating at the time of the killing
What is the definition for “mental functioning/ old “abnormality of the mind”?
Accepted Definition in Byrne
“a state of mind so different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable man would term it abnormal”
What is classed as a “recongnised medical condition”?
Wide - ranging and covers conditions that are both physical and psychological such as depression and PTSD
What happened in the case of Grey?
D stabbed and kiled a druken pedestrian in an attack brough on by PTSD. Gray had been in the 1999 Paddington rail crash and left traumatised. V who was drunk had wandered in front of Ds car and started baning on the windows which remained of people banging on the windows in the train crash.D got out of car and kicked and punched V and drove to a friends house grabbed a knive and went back and killed V. D pleaded guilty of voluntary manslaughter on the grounds of DR. (PTSD= recognised medical condition
What happens if there is more than one cause for Ds abnormality?
If both are recogonised medical conditons then it strengthens ds defence
However, if not a recongonised medical condition then that one is discounted but the other is still valid
PREVIOUSLY
Where D suffered from a condition not presently regarded as a medical condition there was no defence. If it later became recongonised D could appeal and hope for a retrial such as that of Hobson
(D convicted of murder in 1992 but battered women sydrome had yet to be offically recogonised, she later appealed and successful raised DR on those grounds)
NEW LAW
=more scope for emerging medical conditions
If the defence can call upon an acknoweldged specialsit who have had their work validated, to give evidence, then DR may be avalaible
e.g Challen DR awarded as medical evidence by psychiatric after murdering husband deemed suffiecient
What is meant by “substantially impaires”?
In Byrne the CA said that whether Ds impairment was “substantial” was a question for the jury. This is becuase there is no scientific test to determine how somone has been affected by their condition
e.g Khan “It is impossible to provide any accurate scientific measurement of the extent to which a particular person “ might be able to “understand or control his physical impulses on a particular occassion”
Under the previous law how was “substantial” explained to the jury?
Llyod
“substantial does not mean total. At the other end of the scale, substantial does not mean trivial or minimal…. it is something in between”
=relatively vague, which allowed for judicai discretion
What is the new laws way of explaining “substantial” to the jury?
Golds Supreme court case
“The jury must understand theat “substantially” involves a matter of degree. In the context of diminished responsiblity an impairment of consequence or weight is what is required to reduce murder to manslaughter, and not any impairment which is greater than merely trivial”
What does the law mean by “to understand the nature of conduct and form rational judgment ad exercise self-control” ?
This explains how the reconginsed medical condition msut affect D. Previously the law required the condition to “substantially impair Ds mental responsiblity” but without percisely saying how it had to be impaired.
=New law is narrower but also clear for the jury to apply as well as the judicial direction very much an explicit part fo the statutory definition
The reform seems to have been influenced by the comments stated in Byrne
What is meant by the “ability to understand the nature of his conduct”?
Covers situations where D is in an automatic state and does not know what they are doing, clearly D does not undersntad the nautre of their conduct
What is meant by “ability to form a rational judgment”?
Even if D does undersntad what they are doing, they may not be able to form rational judgment, this could be apparent for someone suffering from paranoia or battered women sydrome
What is meant by “ability to exercise self control”?
e.g Byrne (D could not cotrol his perveted desires as he was a sexual psychopath. D murdered a young girl and mutailated her body)
State a case where the DR plea was accepted without going to trial?
Heginbotham
the judge stated that “the killing of your wife was an act of desperation”
What is meant by “provide an explanation”?
D msut provide that the abnormality of the mental functioning provides an explanation for the killing
=was introduced in the reforms
requires a cler causal link between the abnormality and the killing
HOWEVER only needs to provide “an” explaination, this recognises that other factors may have led to the killing. This is becuase the government and law comission felt it was too impratical to require the abnormality to be the only reason
How is the DR effected by intoxication?
1)Intoxication alone
2)Recogonised medical condition and intoxication
3)Intoxication and pre-exisitng abnormality
What is the laws view on the success of rasing DR on Intoxication alone?
=DR not available (would have to raise intoxication)
e.g Dowds
D and V were habit binge drinkers. D killed V by stabbing her 60 times. D tried to rasie DR on the groudns that “acute intoxication” was a recongonised medical condition. CA rejected this and upheld murder conviction. “voluntary actue intoxication, whether from alcohol or other substances, is not capable of founding DR”
What is the laws view on the success of raising DR with intoxication and pre-exisitng abnormality?
Juries are directed to avoid the effects of intoxication and to decide whether the abnormality on tis own is enough to amoun to the abnormality of the mental functioning that substantially impairs D. Abnormality must be the underlying cause.
confirmed in the case of Gittens
CA confirmed that Ds underlying depression on its own may have amounted to an “abnormality of mind” and juries should be directed to disregard the effect of alcohol or drug consumption
HOWEVER the HL confirmed as well that being intoxication at the same time does not automatically render DR unavaliable, as the D may have an abnormality that substaintially impares but the alcohol tipped them over the edge= up to jury
What did the case of Joyce confirm?
A person suffering from a recogonised medical condition, can rely on the partial defence of diminished responsbility where voluntary intoxication had triggered the psychotic state. But note it will not be avaliable where the D chose to voluntarily get intoxicated well aware of the possble consequecnes
What is the laws view on providing DR and alcoholism?
(Alcohol Depedency sydrome) is a recongised medical condition. This condition can be used to raise DR like anyother qualifying medical condition.
