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Essay Criminal Law
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GRADE A+ CRIMINAL LAW FIRST YEAR ANSWER UNIVERSITY OF LONDON LOSS OF SELF CONTROL AND DIMINISHED RESPONSIBILITY ESSAY.
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QUESTION. LOSS OF CONTROL AND DIMINISHED RESPONSIBILTYThe first partial defence to take into account is loss of control, which was presented as a substitute
of the common law defence of incitement, present in s54-55 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
The essential element requires the defendant to lose self control due to a qualifying trigger, for
example his fear of serious violence from the victim to him or another, things said or done by a
person who really means what he said which gave Defendant a legitimate reason of being wronged
and someone of Defendant’s age and sex with a normal amount of self restraint would have acted in
the same way.
This defence is affirming that even though the defendant was guilty, the victim was also responsible
to some extent. The law criticises the act that is done and loss of control but in the opinion of law
incitement is a concession to human weakness. Over here the partial defence is adopting the role of
a rational justification, partially defending the wrongful act that the defendant had committed while
criticising the action of causing death which is unacceptable. The conduct of the defendant here is
considered essentially as being flawed in a way that it is considered rightful. The reason the law
permits loss of control as a defence and the reason it is expressed the way it is because of the fact
that loss of control is a representation of morality of law. For example, a woman who kills the person
who rapes her in retaliation, is most likely to be supported by the law as her action of killing him is a
sentimental judgement about the inappropriateness of rape which is shared by Law. Here we are
not able to differentiate between the Defendant’s feeling of emotional wrongfulness from the laws
sense of rightful punishment. It is because of this reason that we should support this defence with
only regard to murder, it is unreasonable to call someone a murderer, when the act which they
committed is partially, obviously not entirely, justifiable. despite being abnormal it would appear to
make sense just because of the normative importance of murder to allow this defence to be
exclusive to it.
However, The defendant will still be held liable under the offence of voluntary manslaughter despite
getting this defence. This is partially because of the acknowledgement of the fact that the defendant
still killed the Victim which cannot be excused, the defendant’s guilty is less. Additionally there is the
risk that if the defendant is only held liable because of loss of control then this would be unfair to
the victim as it would be like blaming the victim completely for their own death. It is not possible to
entirely blame the victim in such a situation.
The abnormality of this defence is that it focuses on the male gender as compared to other defences
which usually focus on both the genders. Although according to the statistics most of the murders
are committed by men, women shouldn’t lose the hope of relying on this defence. The essence of
the defence is the expression of Male anger where they kill the person who provoked them to
become infuriated in the heat of the moment. In comparison the female loss of control takes time to
flare up, they would rather wait patiently, buy poison and commit the crime that way. As this
defence became increasingly difficult for women to use, following the case of Ahluwalia, the slow
burn effect has been allowed. However this defence should be only used with regard to murder, in
other crimes, this defence would give the unfair advantage to men who are involved in violence to
escape criminal liability.
The defence of diminished responsibility is present in section 2 of the homicide act 1957. This
defence requires the defendant to have gone through from an abnormality of mental functioning
derived from recognised medical condition which considerably impaired his ability to understand the
essence of his conduct or form a sensible judgment or use self control and therefore defended
himself with an explanation for his conduct.
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