This is a comprehensive and detailed note on Voluntary Manslaughter - Diminished Responsibility and Loss of Control for La 104.
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Diminished Responsibility
Special defence available for a charge of murder
Partial defence reducing conviction to voluntary manslaughter
• On basis that should not be held liable to standard of ‘normal’ person because of their
medical condition
Mentally ill HWVR not insane
• B.o.P: “balance of probabilities”
Introduced + fully codified in: Homicide Act 1957 s2
Amended: Coroners + Justice Act 2009 s52
♦ Should still refer to S2 HA57
♦ General safety valve for culpable killings that are not ‘murder’
Pre C&JA 2009
Include abused women + mercy killers
- Current law: only in cases where suffer from recognised medical condition
,‘such abnormality of mind (arising from a Updated + modernized Homicide Act 1957 s2
condition of arrest / retarded dev of mind /
any inherent causes / induced x disease / inj) • Not substantially changed HWVR
as substantially Impaired mental juridified it (made more legal)
responsibility’ -----------------------------------------------------------
= kills but shall not be convicted of murder
ELEMENTS
-----------------------------------------------------------
No murder conviction where D suffers:
REQUIREMENTS
1. Abnormality of mental functioning
1. ‘Abnormality of mind’
(Not defined in statute)
a. From condition of arrested / retarded • Req link betw medical condition +
development of mind some impact on mind
b. Any inherent causes • Require medical evidence
c. Induced x disease/injury
• Broad: any abnormality 2. Arising from a recognized medical
- Q for psychiatrist: testimony on condition
nature on condition of mind
• Psychiatric + medical (purely physical)
R v Byrne [1960] conditions
Killed young girl, claimed psychopathy (Wide range)
(personality disorder), medical evidence
showed suffered from perverse sexual urges • Courts guided x medical recognition
Abnormality of mind (under s2(1) Homicide w/in glossaries
Act 1957) = - World Health Org International
State of mind so diff from ordinary human Statistical Classification of Diseases +
being that reasonable man would term abn Related Health Problems (ICD 10)
• ‘Wide enough to cover mind’s - American Medical Association’s
activity in all its aspects’ Diagnostic + Statistical Manual (DSM)
- Incl ability to exercise power to
control physical acts + ability to form ♦ No threshold of seriousness
rational judgement as to whether act (ex: mild depression suffices)
right / wrong
R v Wood [2009]
Alcoholic killed V w/ meat cleaver after V
2. ‘Substantially impaired mental attempted to perform unwanted sexual acts
responsibility’ on D
Q: whether perpetrator’s symptom caused
• Moral q for jury (responsibility) mental abnormality
, R v Lloyd [1967] • In considering whether impacted
Killed wife, evidence of recurrent episodes of mental resp: jury consider effect of
recreative depression alcohol consumed as a result of
- Psychiatrists: mental abnormality illness NOT alcohol consumed
impaired mental resp hwvr only ‘to voluntarily
some extent’ NOT substantially a. If alcohol consumed in period pre
Substantial Impairment= killing voluntary
‘less than total, more than trivial ’ b. If mental responsibility substantially
- Psychiatric pov: deterministic ideas of impaired x alcohol consumed as a
how person comes to act through result of syndrome
mental condition
- Legal pov: legal + moral issues around HOWEVER:
free will Hughes LJ:
Medical dictionaries may include ‘conditions’
----------------------------------------------------------- that would be inapprop for DR defence
(ex: unhappiness, anger, paedophilia)
CRITICISM = court provides further filter to what is
recognized in defence
• ‘Abnormality of mind’ required the R v Dowds [2012]
testimony of psychiatrists Killed partner in frenzied attack while heavily
- scientific discourse of the psychiatrist, intox, habitual binge drinker, no recollection
mental conditions can be studied to of event, could exercise choice over drinking
reveal the way an abnormality of but when drank unable to stop
mind leads to, causes / conditions WHOrg lists acute intoxication in Internal
criminal acts Classification of Disease
• ‘Substantial impairment of mental (medically recognized condition: satisfy
responsibility’ required the moral s2(1)(1) HA57 as amended x s52 CJA09)
judgment of the jury HWVR appeal dismissed:
- mental responsibility of the accused Voluntary acute intox whether
raises a metaphysical question of the alcohol/other substance NOT capable of
freedom of the will which scientific founding DR
discourse is not designed to answer • Court concerned recog medical
→ Psychiatrist: ‘irresistible impulse’ = conditions make law broader than
product of mental disease + person judges want
experiencing it is caused to act as he - Certain med conds in diagnostic
does manuals produced x psychiatric + med
→ Lawyers w/ mentalistic and professionals are invalid under law
voluntaristic conception of human Law draws upon what is regarded as
conduct: always a suspicion that the recog med cond HWVR not bound x
accused has simply declined to resist psychiatric categories
a particular impulse
3. Substantially impairing D’s ability to
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