It is self-evident that our existing homicide laws are in urgent need of reform when even Ken Macdonald QC, the director of public prosecutions, criticises them and is echoed by several senior judges. In an interview, he proposed that there should be degrees of homicide, not just murder and manslaughter, but three or four degrees. The government has acknowledged this and has asked the law commission to widen its approach from just examining the law on provocation to consideration of the whole law on homicide. The law commission itself commented on the current Homicide law (provocation) and stated that the present law of murder in England and Wales is a mess. The Homicide Act 1957 has been criticised mainly under these following premises.
Intention Charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter require an intention to kill or harm on the part of the accused. It could be argued that a nurse has such an intention if he or she is responsible for certain actions, for example switching off a ventilator, or omissions, such as not attempting to resuscitate a patient. One way the law is sometimes said to address this problem is by invoking the doctrine of double effect (Cavanaugh 2006). The idea behind this doctrine is that some decisions made have both good
This argument can be broken down into a premise and a conclusion. The premise is ‘for felony capital murder’ and the conclusion to this premise is ‘Singleton was to be executed’. There is an additional premise ‘became insane while in prison’. This premise has the same conclusion ‘Singleton was to be executed’. In this case, we should be aware of the past tense verb ‘was’.
Such therapies became widely used because doctors and nurses wanted to offer patients cutting-edge treatment. ECT and lobotomy, however, reinforced an old and persistent image of asylums as intimidating places of last resort. Many mental hospitals closed in the 1970s and 1980s. This was due to pressure from the antipsychiatry movement, feminist criticism, ex-patient activism and political suspicion of large, unaccountable institutions. Other mental hospitals were converted to ‘short-stay’ treatment centres - a policy enabled by new psychiatric drugs.
Secondary the outdated and archaic language makes it difficult to interpret through all the complex case law. In Ireland and Burstow, Lord Steyn said psychological illnesses were not even thought of by the Victorian legislator when creating the act. Furthermore the courts have had to make very wide interpretations of words in order to fit modern issues such as stalking in Constanza. One possible reform on this issue was set out in a 1993 Law Commission report on the OAP Act in which the language was totally altered to suite modern understandings. The word injury is used and defined in the proposed bill, making it clear it includes physical as well as mental injury.
The use of ECT declined until the 1980s, "when use began to increase amid growing awareness of its benefits and cost-effectiveness for treating severe depression". In 1985 the National Institute of Mental Health and National Institutes of Health convened a consensus development conference on ECT and concluded that, while ECT was the most controversial treatment in psychiatry and had significant side-effects, it had been shown to be effective for a narrow range of severe psychiatric disorders. Due to the backlash noted previously, national institutions reviewed past practices and set new standards. This report emphasised the importance of informed consent, and the expanded role that the procedure has in modern medicine. In 2003, The UK ECT Review group published a systematic review and meta-analysis comparing ECT to placebo and antidepressant drugs.
iFORENSIC PSYCHIATRY When killing isn’t murder: psychiatric and psychological defences to murder when the insanity defence is not applicable Anthony Samuels, Colman O’Driscoll and Stephen Allnutt ´ Objective: This paper describes psychiatric and psychological defences to murder where the defence of insanity is not applicable. The charges of murder and manslaughter are outlined. Self-defence, sane and insane automatism, provocation, diminished responsibility, duress, necessity and novel defences are discussed. Conclusions: The complexities of psychological and psychiatric expert evidence are highlighted as well as the fact that legal decisions are not always consistent with medical or scientific theory. It is concluded that this is a controversial and evolving area of mental health law and mental health professionals have an educative role and a responsibility to provide testimony that is supported by the best possible evidence.
Scenario One: Can Ken be convicted of a homicide offense? Explain and justify your answer. Ken can be convicted for a couple different homicide charges in this case and in this paragraph. One of the homicide offenses they can be charged with is reckless homicide code 0142 this would be the charge if Ken had accidentally disclosed the information. Another charge that Ken can be tagged with is first degree homicide code 0110 if it is found that Ken willfully and premeditated doing it.
Origins of Abnormal Psychology The deinstitutionalization movement began in the 1960s where the number of psychiatric hospitals radically decreased and conditions for patients improved drastically (Hansell & Damour, 2008). “The blunt realities of mental illness shatter our most deeply held convictions about the nature of human consciousness and behavior. The mentally ill are more different than us than we can imagine and more like us than we care to admit” (Bosco, p. 131). Past methods of treatment used to help the mentally ill has faced a great deal of controversy in society and was clear during this era the methods previously used had negative results on both society and the patients. While in the early stages of the deinstitutionalization the methods were radical and released patients from hospitals most programs were not well thought out or implemented.
AUTOMATISM ANL) CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY EXACTLY part automatism plnys in determining linbility for what . crime in English law was regarded by Devlin J, a member of the . Divisional Court, in Hill v Baxter a s still “ a novel point,” the answer to which depended on whether or n ot the temporary loss of consciousness was attributable to a disease of the mind within the M’Naughten Rules and also on t he nature of the liability which the prosecution has to establish. The learned judge’s excursus into the ambit of .automatism in criminal law and its impact on t he related question of the burden of proof, though unnecessary in view of the Divisional Court’s finding that the evidence fell far short of what would justify a court holding that the respondent was in some automatous state a t the time of the alleged offence, is notable for its analysis of basic principles. Although careful to avoid making categorical pronouncements on matters still awniting decision by .