scholarly journals Proposed Reforms to Partial Defences and their Implications for Mentally Disordered Defendants

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (17) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Andy Bickle
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Mentally Disordered ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Mitigating Factors ◽  
The Law ◽  
Homicide Law ◽  
United Kingdom Government ◽  
Partial Defences ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

<p align="LEFT">Partial defences are special defences only available in England &amp; Wales to defendants charged with murder. They include provocation, diminished responsibility, infanticide and killing pursuant to a suicide pact. These are known as the ‘voluntary manslaughters’ where homicide with intent otherwise sufficient for murder (‘malice aforethought’) is reduced to manslaughter because of defined mitigating circumstances. Provocation and diminished responsibility have proved most problematic and will be the focus of this article. The mitigating factors arise from abnormal mental states, and psychiatric evidence has been at the centre of disputes regarding these defences. In this journal, Kerrigan set out recent problems that have developed with provocation in case law. The degree to which mental disorder can be considered when deciding the standard of behaviour required of the defendant who pleads ‘provocation’ has fluctuated markedly in recent years. Diminished responsibility, on the other hand, has aroused concern, inter alia, over its expansive use to cover a wide range of mental conditions, and the frequency with which expert psychiatrists comment on the ‘ultimate issue’ of whether all limbs of the test are met. Both problems might be said to arise from vague terms in the statutory definition that are incompatible with contemporary psychiatric practice.</p><p align="LEFT">Following the controversial case of R v Smith (Morgan James), which permitted mental disorder a much greater effect on provocation, the United Kingdom Government asked the Law Commission to consider and report on the law and practice of the partial defences provided for by the Homicide Act 1957. This progressed to investigation into wider homicide law and a process of consultation and review which has now passed to the Ministry of Justice. This paper will outline briefly the review process before considering in greater detail the current proposals for new definitions of provocation and diminished responsibility. The Commission would like these to exist within a radically re-structured law of homicide. The implications for mentally disordered defendants and therefore expert psychiatric opinion will be considered.</p>

scholarly journals Psychiatric expert evidence and the new partial defences of diminished responsibility and loss of control

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 277-284
Author(s):  
Rajan Nathan ◽  
Simon Medland
Keyword(s):  
Expert Witnesses ◽  
Loss Of Control ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
Psychiatric Assessment ◽  
The Law ◽  
Partial Defences ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

SummaryPsychiatric expert witnesses instructed to undertake assessments of defendants charged with murder should be familiar with the partial defences of diminished responsibility and loss of control. The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 enacted major amendments to the partial defence of diminished responsibility and introduced a new defence of loss of control to replace the provocation partial defence. In this article, the changes to the law are described with particular focus on the implications for the psychiatric assessment.

scholarly journals Theories of general personality and mental disorder

2003 ◽  
Vol 182 (S44) ◽  
pp. s19-s23 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Duggan ◽  
J. Milton ◽  
V. Egan ◽  
L. McCarthy ◽  
B. Palmer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorders ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Consecutive Series ◽  
Personality Theory ◽  
Mentally Disordered Offenders ◽  
Personality Dimension ◽  
Mentally Disordered ◽  
The Relationship

BackgroundA major short coming of current research into personality is its failure to explore the relationship between theories of general personality and mental disorder.AimsTo provide preliminary data to address this deficit.MethodIn the first of two studies, we examined the relationship between the Neuroticism, Extraversion and Other – Five-Factor Inventory (NEO–FFI) and DSM personality disorders in a consecutive series of mentally disordered offenders. In the second, we sought to separate the personality dimension neuroticism from symptoms of depressive disorder in a sample of subjects with current depression.ResultsFactors from the NEO–FFI were associated with different personality disorders in a predictable manner (first study). It was possible to identify a component of neuroticism (i.e. ‘worry’) that could be separated from depressive symptoms (second study).ConclusionsTheories of general personality theory can enlighten and refine descriptions of abnormal mental states by informing both their aetiology and their prognosis.

Indonesian Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Lindsey ◽  
Simon Butt
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Banking Competition ◽  
Inheritance System ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Forest Law ◽  
Comprehensive Survey ◽  
The Law

This book explains Indonesia’s complex legal system and how it works. Covering a wide range of substantive topics from public to private law, including commercial, criminal, and constitutional law, it is the first comprehensive survey of Indonesian law in English. Offering clear answers to practical problems of current law, each chapter sets out relevant laws and leading court decisions, accompanied by an explanation of how the law works in practice, with an analytical critique. The book begins with an account of Indonesia’s Constitution and the key state agencies, before moving to the lawmaking process, decentralization, the judicial system and court procedure, and the legal profession (advocates, notaries, and legal aid). Part II covers traditional customary law (adat), land law, and environmental law, including forest law. Part III focuses on criminal law and procedure, including investigation, arrest, trial, sentencing, and appeals. It also covers human rights law and the law on corruption. Part IV deals with civil law, and covers civil liability, contracts, companies and other business vehicles, labour, foreign investment, taxation, insolvency, banking, competition, and media law. The book concludes in Part V with an account of Indonesia’s complex family law and inheritance system for both Muslims and non-Muslims. The book has an extensive glossary of legal terms, and detailed tables of legislation and court decisions, designed as unique resources for lawyers, policymakers, and researchers.

The Impact of Mental States on Semi-autonomous Driving Takeover Performance: A Systematic Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 1372-1376
Author(s):  
Gaojian Huang ◽  
Christine Petersen ◽  
Brandon J. Pitts
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Autonomous Driving ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Manual Control ◽  
Monitoring Systems ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact

Semi-autonomous vehicles still require drivers to occasionally resume manual control. However, drivers of these vehicles may have different mental states. For example, drivers may be engaged in non-driving related tasks or may exhibit mind wandering behavior. Also, monitoring monotonous driving environments can result in passive fatigue. Given the potential for different types of mental states to negatively affect takeover performance, it will be critical to highlight how mental states affect semi-autonomous takeover. A systematic review was conducted to synthesize the literature on mental states (such as distraction, fatigue, emotion) and takeover performance. This review focuses specifically on five fatigue studies. Overall, studies were too few to observe consistent findings, but some suggest that response times to takeover alerts and post-takeover performance may be affected by fatigue. Ultimately, this review may help researchers improve and develop real-time mental states monitoring systems for a wide range of application domains.

Mental disorder and homicide: a review of epidemiological research

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Woodward ◽  
Jean Nursten ◽  
Paul Williams ◽  
Doug Badger
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Epidemiological Research ◽  
Mentally Disordered ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Comprehensive Search ◽  
General Populations ◽  
Key Questions

SummaryObjective – This paper reviews 28 studies on the epidemiology of homicide committed by mentally disordered people, taken from recent international academic literature. Methods – The studies included were identified as part of a wider systematic review of the epidemiology of offending combined with mental disorder. The main databases searched were Embase, Medline, HealthStar, Psyclit, Mental Health Abstracts, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, and Criminology Penology and Police Science Abstracts. A comprehensive search was made for studies published since 1990, supplemented with key studies from the 1980s identified through citation tracing and personal contacts. Results – A summary is given in tabular form of the content and quality of each study. There is then discussion of the studies in eight categories: descriptive studies, studies of trends, comparative studies amongst homicide offenders, amongst prisoners and including general populations, studies of homicide of relatives, follow-up studies, and studies of recidivism. Conclusions – There is an association of homicide with mental disorder, most particularly with certain manifestations of schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder and drug or alcohol abuse. However, the quality of epidemiological research in this area is not adequate to answer key questions, and prediction of potential for homicide remains elusive. Further research is needed.

scholarly journals Activity in the brain’s valuation and mentalizing networks is associated with propagation of online recommendations

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa C. Baek ◽  
Matthew Brook O’Donnell ◽  
Christin Scholz ◽  
Rui Pei ◽  
Javier O. Garcia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Word Of Mouth ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Opinion Change ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Mentalizing System

AbstractWord of mouth recommendations influence a wide range of choices and behaviors. What takes place in the mind of recommendation receivers that determines whether they will be successfully influenced? Prior work suggests that brain systems implicated in assessing the value of stimuli (i.e., subjective valuation) and understanding others’ mental states (i.e., mentalizing) play key roles. The current study used neuroimaging and natural language classifiers to extend these findings in a naturalistic context and tested the extent to which the two systems work together or independently in responding to social influence. First, we show that in response to text-based social media recommendations, activity in both the brain’s valuation system and mentalizing system was associated with greater likelihood of opinion change. Second, participants were more likely to update their opinions in response to negative, compared to positive, recommendations, with activity in the mentalizing system scaling with the negativity of the recommendations. Third, decreased functional connectivity between valuation and mentalizing systems was associated with opinion change. Results highlight the role of brain regions involved in mentalizing and positive valuation in recommendation propagation, and further show that mentalizing may be particularly key in processing negative recommendations, whereas the valuation system is relevant in evaluating both positive and negative recommendations.

scholarly journals Diminished responsibility and alcohol

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuwan Galappathie ◽  
Krishma Jethwa
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Life Sentence ◽  
The Law ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

SummaryIn England and Wales diminished responsibility is a partial defence to the charge of murder. If successfully argued by the defence, it reduces the charge from murder to manslaughter and thus avoids the mandatory life sentence. Alcohol has been reported to be a feature in up to 80% of all homicides but for many years the judiciary have set an almost unattainable threshold for the disease of alcoholism to amount to a finding of diminished responsibility, in accordance with other aspects of criminal law. Reform of the law on murder is likely to take many years but it is timely to recap the current law on diminished responsibility and review advances in case law in England and Wales on alcohol.

scholarly journals Harmonic Brain Modes: A Unifying Framework for Linking Space and Time in Brain Dynamics

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selen Atasoy ◽  
Gustavo Deco ◽  
Morten L. Kringelbach ◽  
Joel Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Structural Connectivity ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Dynamics ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Brain

A fundamental characteristic of spontaneous brain activity is coherent oscillations covering a wide range of frequencies. Interestingly, these temporal oscillations are highly correlated among spatially distributed cortical areas forming structured correlation patterns known as the resting state networks, although the brain is never truly at “rest.” Here, we introduce the concept of harmonic brain modes—fundamental building blocks of complex spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity. We define these elementary harmonic brain modes as harmonic modes of structural connectivity; that is, connectome harmonics, yielding fully synchronous neural activity patterns with different frequency oscillations emerging on and constrained by the particular structure of the brain. Hence, this particular definition implicitly links the hitherto poorly understood dimensions of space and time in brain dynamics and its underlying anatomy. Further we show how harmonic brain modes can explain the relationship between neurophysiological, temporal, and network-level changes in the brain across different mental states ( wakefulness, sleep, anesthesia, psychedelic). Notably, when decoded as activation of connectome harmonics, spatial and temporal characteristics of neural activity naturally emerge from the interplay between excitation and inhibition and this critical relation fits the spatial, temporal, and neurophysiological changes associated with different mental states. Thus, the introduced framework of harmonic brain modes not only establishes a relation between the spatial structure of correlation patterns and temporal oscillations (linking space and time in brain dynamics), but also enables a new dimension of tools for understanding fundamental principles underlying brain dynamics in different states of consciousness.

scholarly journals Understanding of Emotional States in Persons with Pedophilia / Pedophilic Disorder

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 84-99
Author(s):  
L.Y. Demidova ◽  
N.V. Dvoryanchikov
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Regulation ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Sexual Crimes ◽  
Sexual Drive ◽  
Emotional Perception ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Icd 10 ◽  
High Level

This article highlights the problem of emotional perception in pedophilia (ICD-10) / pedophilia disorder (ICD-11). In present paper, emotional perception is considered as abilities of recognizing and identifying a wide range of mental states like emotions, affects, moods, feelings. The assumption about relations of alexithymia and disturbances in the recognition of emotions, perspective taking, empathy with pedophilia and regulatory mechanisms of activity verified empirically. Two groups of persons accused of sexual crimes are compared: 44 people with pedophilia, 32 people without the disorder; also 95 persons who haven't been accused were examined for the control group; as well intra-group comparison of pedophilic persons with egosyntonic and egodystonic attitude toward sexual drive was made. Contradictions of earlier studies are resolved in the result: it is shown that in pedophilia the ability of understanding emotional states remains normal at first sight (in comparison with the deficits found in the accused without pedophilia). However, the group with pedophilia is characterized by extremely high level of alexithymia and based on this the consistently conclusion is made about disturbances of emotional regulation in egosyntonic form of this disorder.

scholarly journals Battered woman syndrome and PTSD in women who kill their abusing partner: a study in medical jurisprudence

BJPsych Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (S1) ◽  
pp. S266-S266
Author(s):  
Sharmilaa Lagunathan
Keyword(s):  
Battered Women ◽  
Medical Condition ◽  
Battered Woman ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Rapid Review ◽  
Abused Women ◽  
Battered Woman Syndrome ◽  
Women Who Kill ◽  
Partial Defences ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

AimsThe aim of the study was to identify any symptoms or features of Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that may be associated with, or explain, abused women killing their abuser; and the extent to which such identified symptoms or features have been deemed, or are potentially relevant, to past and now reformed partial defences to murder in English law. Hence two sub-studies were completed.MethodThe first sub-study identified mental symptoms of BWS or PTSD apparent in battered women who kill their abuser; achieved by identifying relevant research papers, through applying a ‘rapid review’ approach to three databases: PubMed, PsychInfo and PsychArticles. The second sub-study identified by legal research reported Court of Appeal (CA) judgments on women appealing their conviction of the murder of their abusive partner. It then analysed the legal approach taken towards evidence of the effects of abuse upon these women before and after relevant statutory law reform (although no CA cases were identified post-reform).ResultThe first sub-study identified and reviewed six symptoms or features, within three quantitative and three qualitative studies, that appeared to be associated with, or described by, abused women killing their abuser. These included helplessness, symptoms associated with PTSD, plus fear, isolation, experience of escalation of violence and cycle of violence. From the CA cases the perpetrators of killings that occurred prior to 04.10.2010 (the date of law reform) were usually successful in having their conviction overturned based upon diminished responsibility; but not provocation, because of the requirement of ‘sudden loss of self control’. ‘Loss of control’, which replaced provocation, appears highly likely to be capable of reducing murder to manslaughter based upon symptoms of BWS, or PTSD. However, the amended defence of diminished responsibility is likely to exclude evidence of BWS, but allow evidence of PTSD, because of its requirement of the defendant suffering from ‘a recognised medical condition’.ConclusionThis study demonstrated particular symptoms or features of BWS or PTSD associated with abused women killing their abusers plus their very different relevance to two partial defences to murder, pre and post law reform.

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