Criminal law defences

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what do legally recognised offences do?
- 1. elide criminal responsiablity altogether
- 2.diminsh the seriousness of the crime
how are defences raised
- in two ways
- 1. reasonable doubt about material element of the crown case
- 2.Justification defence which makes lawful a notional breach of the criminal law
what do special offence include?
- alibi
- Incrimination- a nig bad man did it and ran away
- Insanity
what are the issues with insanity at the time of the trial?
- Right to a fair trail requires a capable accused
- no right to punish the afflicted
what is the second difficlty with insanity?

Both issues can occur at the same time
Insanity as a defence explain

criminal law is about punishing volountry conduct
what happened in Kid v HMA
- assulted his wife with chloroform, and aphyxiate her and do the same to his daughter
- A)aquited on the grounds of insanity
- onus of proving diminshed responsiablity was on the accussed
what happened in Brennan V HMA
- charged with murder of father
- lauched special defence of insanity
- he had took drink and drugs
- Judge took away special defence of insanity and that he could not be convicted of culpable homocide
- convicted of murder and appealed
- cannot plead diminshed responsiablity or insanity if drink or drugs are taken
- drink not an excuse
- On the basis of the recent law on automatisim- involountary ingestion of drink or drugs could be a defence
non insame automatisim
- although not insane is in similar position
- automatisim is now a special defence and is closley tied in with insanity
what happened in Ross v HMA
- seven charges of attempted murder
- accused drink was spiked
- case sent to a bench of 7 judges
- appeal court ignored the fact that he had volountary taken alcohol
- proof of mens rea is essential for conviction
what are the threee conditions of drunkness?
- non slef induced external factor
- not forseen by accused
- total loss of self control
- there must a caustive link between the external factor and total loss of self control
internal automatisim- what are the three conditions attached to such a drug
- non self induced external factor
- non forseen by accussed
- total loss of self control
- must be a causative link between the external factor and the total loss of self control
what happened in Mcloead v Mathieson 1993
- charged with careless driving
- diabetic
- took insulin
- still charged with
- Accused still convicted,
- he had no defence becuase driver knew that he was liable to be bocome "disabled"
- without warning and unable to control his vehcile without danger to others
- accused convicted

Author

zahra786

18619

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Criminal law defences

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Part 1 of defences

Updated

2010-05-10T16:24:42Z

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