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Summary Voluntary manslaughter - Criminal law
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Summary of voluntary manslaughter including diminished responsibility and loss of control for OCR, written by an A* student
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Murder can be reduced to voluntary manslaughter - also knownas mitigated murder.
Special and partial defence to murder - special because it is only
specific to murder. Partial because it won’t lead to an acquittal, it
just reduces from murder to voluntary manslaughter.
Diminished responsibility:
The defence of diminished responsibility - s.2 Homicide act 1957,
as amended by the Coroners and Justice act 2009.
(no actus reus for defences but there are requirements)
Diminished responsibility requirements:
1. D must have been suffering an abnormality of mental
suffering. Byrne - a state of mind so different from that of
an ordinary person that a reasonable person would term it
abnormal.
2. Arised from a recognised medical condition.
The abnormality must have been arising from a recognised
medical condition.
Psychopathy / irresistible impulses – Byrne
Depression - Gittens
Battered woman syndrome – Ahluwalia
Alcoholism / Alcohol Dependency Syndrome – Wood / Stewart
Paranoia / Paranoid personality disorder - Simcox / Martin
Adjustment disorder – Dietschmann
Asperger’s Syndrome – Jama
Epilepsy – Campbell
Premenstrual tension – Smith
, Postnatal depression - Reynolds
Schizophrenia - Moyle
Excessive jealousy (Othello Syndrome) – Vinagre
Acute stress disorder – Robson
3. Which substantially impaired the defendant’s ability to:
understand the nature of his conduct (D may not
understand if delusional, in an automatic state, has learning
difficulties or low mental age etc.), form a rational
judgement (e.g. schizophrenia, paranoia), exercise self
control (Byrne was a seuxal psychopath and there was
medical evidence that he was unable to control his
impulses. Gold - jury should use its own common sense for
the meaning of substantially).
4. The abnormality must provide an explanation for D’s
actions in killing (causal link). Brown - must be a causal
link between D’s abnormality and the killing but need not
be the only one. Meaning the abnormality of mental
functioning need not be the only factor that caused D to kill
but it must be a significant factor.
Intoxication with diminished responsibility:
- Transient effect of drink/drugs on the brain cannot form
the abnormality (Di Duca) but intoxication does not prevent
D from using the defence if he has pre-existing mental
disorder.
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