The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for his or her actions due to an episodic or persistent psychiatric disease at the time of the criminal act. This is contrasted with an excuse of provocation, in which the defendant is responsible, but the responsibility is lessened due to a temporary mental state. It is also contrasted with a finding that a defendant cannot stand trial in a criminal case because a mental disease prevents them from effectively assisting counsel, from a civil finding in trusts and estates where a will is nullified because it was made when a mental disorder prevented a testator from recognizing the natural objects of their bounty, and from involuntary civil commitment to a mental institution, when anyone is found to be gravely disabled or to be a danger to themselves or to others.
The abuse defense is a criminal law defense in which the defendant argues that a prior history of abuse justifies violent retaliation. While the term most often refers to instances of child abuse or sexual assault, it also refers more generally to any attempt by the defense to use a syndrome or societal condition to deflect responsibility away from the defendant. Sometimes the concept is referred to as the abuse excuse, in particular by the critics of the idea that guilty people may use past victimization to diminish the responsibility for their crimes.
The urban survival syndrome, in United States jurisprudence, can be used either as a defense of justification or of excuse. The first case using, unsuccessfully, the defense of "urban survival syndrome" is the 1994 Fort Worth, Texas murder trial of Daimion Osby.
Bertha Wrenham Wilson was a Canadian jurist and the first female Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Before her ascension to Canada's highest court, Wilson was also the first female associate and partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt and the first woman appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario. During her time at Osler, Wilson created the first in-firm research department in the Canadian legal industry.
Steven Murray Truscott is a Canadian man who was sentenced to death in 1959 for the rape and murder of classmate Lynne Harper. Truscott had been the last person to see her alive. He was scheduled to be hanged; however, the federal cabinet reprieved him and he was sentenced to life in prison and released on parole in 1969. Five decades later, in 2007, his conviction was overturned on the basis that key forensic evidence was weaker than had been portrayed at trial.
Battered woman syndrome (BWS) emerged in the 1990s from several murder cases in England in which women had killed violent partners in response to what they claimed was cumulative abuse, rather than in response to a single provocative act.
Automatism is a rarely used criminal defence. It is one of the mental condition defences that relate to the mental state of the defendant. Automatism can be seen variously as lack of voluntariness, lack of culpability (unconsciousness) or excuse (Schopp). Automatism means that the defendant was not aware of his or her actions when making the particular movements that constituted the illegal act. For example, Esther Griggs in 1858 threw her child out of a first floor window believing that the house was on fire, while having a sleep terror. In 2002, Peter Buck, lead guitarist of the band R.E.M., was cleared of several charges, including assault, which resulted from automatism brought on by a bad interaction between alcohol and sleeping pills. In a 2009 case in Aberporth in west Wales, Brian Thomas strangled his wife in their camper van, also during a sleep terror, when he mistook his wife for an intruder. The defence of automatism is denying that the person was acting in the sense that the criminal law demands. As such it is really a denial-of-proof – the defendant is asserting that the offence is not made out. The prosecution does not have to disprove the defence as is sometimes erroneously reported; the prosecution has to prove all the elements of the offence including the voluntary act requirement. Automatism is a defence even against strict liability crimes like dangerous driving, where no intent is necessary.
R v Daviault [1994] 3 S.C.R. 63, is a Supreme Court of Canada decision on the availability of the defence of intoxication for "general intent" criminal offences. The Leary rule which eliminated the defence was found unconstitutional in violation of both section 7 and 11(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Instead, intoxication can only be used as a defence where it is so extreme that it is akin to automatism or insanity.
The criminal law of Canada is under the exclusive legislative jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada. The power to enact criminal law is derived from section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867. Most criminal laws have been codified in the Criminal Code, as well as the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, Youth Criminal Justice Act and several other peripheral statutes.
R v Parks, [1992] 2 S.C.R. 871 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the criminal automatism defence.
R v Stone, [1999] 2 S.C.R. 290 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the use of the defence of automatism in a criminal trial.
In English law, provocation was a mitigatory defence alleging a total loss of control as a response to another's provocative conduct sufficient to convert what would otherwise have been murder into manslaughter. It does not apply to any other offence. It was abolished on 4 October 2010 by section 56(1) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, but replaced by a relatively similar defence of loss of control.
R v Ewanchuk, [1999] 1 SCR 330 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada case concerning the defence of consent to a charge of sexual assault. The Court held that there was no defence of implied consent. The case is also notable for the controversy that arose between Justice John McClung and Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé.
R v Mohan1994 CanLII 80, [1994] 2 SCR 9 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the use of expert witnesses in trial testimony.
Robert Nathan Wilentz was Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1979 to 1996, making him the longest-serving Chief Justice since the Supreme Court became New Jersey's highest court in 1948.
State v. Kelly, 97 N.J. 178; 478 A.2d 364 (1984), is a Supreme Court of New Jersey case where the defendant, Gladys Kelly, was on trial for the murder of her husband, Ernest Kelly with a pair of scissors. The Supreme Court reversed the case for further trial after finding that expert testimony regarding the defence's submission, that Kelly suffered from battered woman syndrome, was incorrectly excluded since battered woman syndrome was a proper subject for expert evidence. Kelly was represented by Charles S. Lorber who is now with Mandelbaum Salsburg of West Orange N.J.
Michael Mark Welner, M.D., is an American forensic psychiatrist and Chairman of The Forensic Panel. Welner is best known for his work in sensitive and complex litigation. He has acted as lead forensic psychiatric examiner in numerous criminal or court proceedings of national and international prominence, including precedent-setting trials and higher court decisions. Welner is also known for a number of innovations in forensic science, forensic psychiatry and justice, including protocols for prospective peer review in forensic medicine consultation, research to standardize an evidence-based distinction of the worst crimes, The Depravity Standard, and recommendations for upgrading forensic science assessment. He has been featured in network television news coverage of forensic psychiatry issues, has authored publications for professional and public audiences, and has contributed to emerging legislation on mental health reform.
The role of expert witnesses in English law is to give explanations of difficult or technical topics in civil and criminal trials, to assist the fact finding process. The extent to which authorities have been allowed to testify, and on what topics, has been debated, and to this end a variety of criterion have evolved throughout English case law.
Richard Jamieson Scott, also known as Dick Scott, is a Canadian jurist who served as the 10th Chief Justice of Manitoba. In that capacity, he presided over the Manitoba Court of Appeal from 1990 to 2013. Among his most notable decisions are those in the cases Rebenchuk v Rebenchuk (2007), Manitoba Métis Federation Inc v Canada et al. (2010), O’Brien v Tyrone Enterprises Ltd (2012), and, while he was on the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba, R v Lavallee.
State v. Leidholm, Supreme Court of North Dakota, 334 N.W.2d 811 (1983), is a criminal law case distinguishing the subjective and objective standard of reasonableness in a case where a battered woman used self-protection as a defense. Janice Leidholm had killed her husband near Washburn, North Dakota and claimed self defense. The case clarifies between the defenses of justification and excuse.
