Diminished responsibility

• Definition:

  • DR - special partial defence where D performs the AR with MR but there are mitigating circumstances, dropping convic to voluntary manslaughter
  • Sentence becomes discretionary, e.g, Murder (Abolishment of death penalty) Act 1965 to reflect Ds actual culpability
  • Introduced as a statutory defence to murder in S.2 Homicide Act 1957 and amended by S.52 coroners and justice act 2009
• Definition:

  • The burden of proof is on D (reverse onus)
  • Can be rejected by jury (sutcliffe)
  • Cannot succeed without expert medical proof (Dix - 'practical necessity')
• Abnormality of mental functioning:

  • R v Byrne 'so different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable man would term it abnormal'
  • Entirely up to the jury
  • No degree of permanence/present since birth needed, just present at the time of killing (R v King)
  • May be more than one cause, but only recognised medical conditions qualify (R v Challen)
• Substantially impaired ability:

  • Byrne - 'substantial', no scientific test - 'impossible to provide any accurate scientific measurement' - Khan
  • Lloyd - Substantial does not mean total
  • Golds - more than trivial should not amount to substantial - 'an impairment of consequence or weight'
• Rational judgement and/or exercise self-control:

  • Explains how the condition affects D must prove the effect by impairing Ds ability to understand nature of conduct/judgement/self-control - Byrne
  • Firstly - nature of conduct, e.g, automatic state, suffers from delusions, severe learning difficulties, low mental age, lack of understanding
  • Second - rational judgement, might understand by cannot form a rational judgement such as schizophrenia, paranoid (King), battered women syndrome
  • Third - ability to exercise self-control, Byrne - sexual psychopath unable to control perverted desires
• An explanation to acts/omissions:

  • Clear casual link between abnormality and the killing - must cause or have a significant contribution factor
  • E.g, depression vs BWS
  • Needs to provide an explanation rather than the explanation
  • Recognises other conditions - 'rare a persons actions will be driven soley from within'
• Intoxication:

  • Simply being intoxicated does not amount to a medical condition and cannot support DR
  • Intoxication may apply instead (Dowds)
• Intoxication and pre-existing abnormality

  • D cannot rely upon the combination of drink and medical condition to equal substantial impairment
  • Juries should ignore effects of intoxication (Gittens)
  • Abnormality must be the underlying cause otherwise the defence cannot run at all
  • Drink may have 'tipped D over the edge'
  • S.2 Homicide Act 1957 - an explanation (R v Joyce, R v Kay, 'such severity')
• Diminished responsibility and alcoholism:

  • Alcohol dependency syndrome is a recognised medical condition where a person cannot control their drinking (R v wood)
  • ADS does not automatically amount to an 'abnormality' because the jury still needs to assess the 'nature and extent of the syndrome'
  • Juries should consider the extent/seriousness of the dependency, reduced control, abstinence of alcohol (Stewart - confirmed in richardson)