Is the Law on Diminished Responsibility Satisfactory?
... voluntary. In the case of Wood (2008), the defendant was drunk and went to the victim's house and had fallen asleep. When he awoke he found the victim trying to perform oral sex on him and hit the victim with a meat clever killing him. Although diminished responsibility had provided a more satisfactory defence than insanity for defendants who kills but are suffering from a mental abnormality, there are still problems with the defence. One such problem is the burden of proof as in most other cases the defence only has to raise the defence and it is up to the ... foundation of humanity on which the defence is based. Only cases where the medical evidence was contested by the prosecution would be tried as murder. Thus valuable court time and expense would have been saved as judges would not be faced with protracted medical testimony on the issue of diminished responsibility before deciding whether or not to accept the plea or to leave it for jury determination. This leads me to conclude that yes the law on diminished responsibility is indeed satisfactory.
Tags: diminished responsibility | criminal law revision | law revision | responsibility satisfactory | mens rea |
Tags: diminished responsibility | criminal law revision | law revision | responsibility satisfactory | mens rea |