Insanity and Diminished Responsibility Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

monomania and Diminished Responsibility - Essay Exampleabnormality of the mind ( R v Byrne ) drug personality disorder (Celebici Trial) involuntary intoxication ( R v Galbraith) psychic flunk and low intelligence ( Lord Deas decision ) minority ( R v Raven ) physical deformities such as blindness and being a deaf-mute ( R v Pritchard). In the treatise Partial Defences To butcher more mitigating factors are added i.e. sufficient provocation by the offended party ( R v smith ) immediate vindication of a grave offence to himself or his relatives (Table 7) Incomplete self-defence where there is no reasonable necessity of the means employed by the culprit (R v Martin) passion or bafflement (Case 113) disease or injury (Note 17) jealousy, mercy killing, depression, relationship of victim to the accused (Table 7). The list goes on and on.Insanity is a plea or defence by which the accused at the time of the heraldic bearing of the act, was labouring under such a defect of reason, arising from a disease of the mind, as not to know the personality and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know that what he was doing was unconventional (The MNaghten Rules). Insanity totally exempts the culprit from vicious liability unless he does it during a lucid interval. If so, he is exclusively liable for the crime unless there are mitigating factors attending the crime.Diminished Respons... 2Diminished Responsibility is be as a plea or defence in which the accused at the moment of the commission of the crime suffers from about form of mental unsoundness or mental aberration or failing of mind, so much so that his mind is so affected that office is diminished from extensive responsibility to partial responsibility ( HM Advocate v Savage). Comparison and Contrast1. Both madness and diminished responsibility are mental states. In insanity, there is a mental disorder or a mental disease which causes the deranged person to be deprive d completely of reason, discernment or freedom of the will at the time of the commission of the crime. In insanity, there is an absence in the federal agent of crime of whatever of all the conditions that would make an act voluntary. On the other hand, in diminished responsibility, there is a mental debility or aberration of the mind or a temporary mental capacity or a temporary mental impairment (Scottish Law Commission 2). Here, there is some degree of reason, discernment or freedom of the will albeit such is beclouded and weakened by the presence of any of the mitigating factors hereinabove mentioned.2. Insanity totally exempts the offender from criminal liability because the insane person is totally deprived , at the time of the performance of the crime, of discernment or reason or intelligence and is unable to distinguish surrounded by right or wrong. In diminished responsibility, as a rule, there is no exemption from criminal liability but there is instead a mitigation or e xtenuation of criminal responsibility