Logged out
Access All our Essays in an Instant
Swap your work for FREE access, or pay £4.99 for instant access
Describe the special defences of diminished responsibility and provocation, Comment on the advantages and disadvantages of these defences.
Member rating:
(3 votes)
| Words:
| Submitted: Tue Mar 23 2004
Page Preview
On the left is an image preview of every page of this document, and below are the first 150 words with formatting removed:
Nicola Osborne a) Describe the special defences of diminished responsibility and provocation b) Comment on the advantages and disadvantages of these defences There are three special defences to a charge of murder which can reduce the offence from murder to manslaughter. These are diminished responsibility, provocation and suicide pact. Diminished responsibility Where a person kills or is party to the killing of another, he / she shall not be convicted of murder if he/she was suffering from such abnormality of mind (whether arising from a condition of arrested or retarded development of mind or any inherent causes or induced by disease or injury) as substantially impaired his medical responsibility in doing or being a party to the killing. Homicide Act 1957 sec 2 The law is that the defendant has to prove that their responsibility was diminished. They have to satisfy a judge and jury of this through the balance of probabilities. Elements which the defence must...
To see the full version of this document, and 143,615 others
