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6 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
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General overview |
• Defined by Homicide Act 1957 (s2) as amended by Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (s52). • D suffers abnormality of mental functioning as a result of a recognised medical condition, the effect of which is that it substantially impairs D's ability to understand what he is doing and this explains why he killed V. • Only available to murder, so must prove AR and MR of murder. • Successful plea leads to manslaughter. • Medical/psychiatric evidence is essential. |
HA, CJA |
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Abnormality of mental functioning |
• Not defined, likely to have similar meaning to old law- state of mental functioning that would be regarded as abnormal by ordinary people (Byrne). • Jury decide but medical evidence will be important. |
B |
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Recognised medical condition |
• Essential to have medical/psychological evidence- stronger for actual diagnosis (Ahluwalia- depression). • Alcohol dependency (Wood), BWS (Hobson), depression (Seers), bipolar disorder (Inglis), PMS (Smith). • Voluntary intoxication can never amount to abnormal mental functioning (Dowds). • May be temporary condition, but must apply at the time of killing. |
A W H S I S D |
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Substantial impairment |
• Jury decision- may have empathy/sympathy. • Must affect one of 'gateways' (understand self-conduct/self-control/form rational judgement). • Needs to be substantial, not necessarily total (Lloyd). • Less than total, more than trivial (Brown(Robert)) (Ramchurch). • Medical evidence is essential. |
L Br R |
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Explains why he killed V |
• Casual connection between abnormality of mental functioning and the killing. • Abnormality must be a significant cause, rather than the only cause. |
Casual connection |
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Overlap with other defences |
• Intoxication- can't rely on DR but may be able to use intoxication as a defence. Where D is an addict but also intoxicated, jury have to try and ignore intoxication and decide based on the addiction (Dowds) (Tandy). • Self-defence- might make the initial killing lawful. |
D T |
