Voluntary Manslaughter- Diminished Responsability Flashcards
What act
S52 coroners and justices act 2009
Where a person who kills or is a party to the killing of another is not toby convicted of murder if that person was suffering from an abnormality of mental functioning which:
Arose from medical conditions, substantially impaired d’s ability to do one or more of the following: understand the nature of his conduct, from a rational judgement and exercise self control Provides
R v Byrne
d strangled and mutilated the body of a young girl, he claimed that he had suffered with perverted sexual desires from childhood which he found impossible to resist. Cannot exercise will power.
R v fairweather
d committed 2 killings over a 3 month period. He claimed he was suffering a psychotic episode at the time and had heard voices telling him to kill. Had autism spectrum disorder, amounts to an abnormality of mental function. Jury did not believe he was psychotic at the time of the killings.
R v Martin
d had been a victim of burglaries and was unsatisfied with the police response. He owned a shotgun. His house was broken into by 3 men and he shot one in the back- a 16yo. Suffering from paranoid personality disorder and depression.
R v brennan
if 2 medical experts agree on the recognised medical condition- then murder has to be withdrawn from the jury
R v brown
abnormality had to be more than a minimal or trivial contribution to the killing but did not need to be the sole cause
R v golds
jury must’ve directed on how substantial should be considered
R v simcox
jury need to decide if the impairment made a substantial difference or just made it harder to control themselves if just harder will still be found guilty
