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In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare cases prosecutorial and/or judge misconduct in the same jurisdiction. Double jeopardy is a common concept in criminal law. In civil law, a similar concept is that of res judicata. Variation in common law countries is the peremptory plea, which may take the specific forms of autrefois acquit or autrefois convict. These doctrines appear to have originated in ancient Roman law, in the broader principle non bis in idem.
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 their actions due to a 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 the justification of self defense or with the mitigation of imperfect self-defense. The insanity defense 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 themself or to others.
The M'Naghten rule(s) (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, McNaughton) is a legal test defining the defence of insanity, first formulated by House of Lords in 1843. It is the established standard in UK criminal law, and versions have also been adopted in some US states (currently or formerly), and other jurisdictions, either as case law or by statute. Its original wording is a proposed jury instruction:
that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and ... that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.
Jury nullification (US/UK), jury equity (UK), or a perverse verdict (UK) occurs when the jury in a criminal trial gives a not guilty verdict regardless of whether they believe a defendant has broken the law. The jury's reasons may include the belief that the law itself is unjust, that the prosecutor has misapplied the law in the defendant's case, that the punishment for breaking the law is too harsh, or general frustrations with the criminal justice system. Some juries have also refused to convict due to their own prejudices in favor of the defendant. Such verdicts are possible because a jury has an absolute right to return any verdict it chooses.
Battered woman syndrome (BWS) is a pattern of signs and symptoms displayed by a woman who has suffered persistent intimate partner violence: whether psychological, physical, or sexual, from her male partner. It is classified in the ICD-9 as battered person syndrome, but is not in the DSM-5. It may be diagnosed as a subcategory of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Victims may exhibit a range of behaviors, including self-isolation, suicidal thoughts, and substance abuse, and may also display signs of physical injury or illness, such as bruises, broken bones, or chronic fatigue.
Debs v. United States, 249 U.S. 211 (1919), was a United States Supreme Court decision, relevant for US labor law and constitutional law, that upheld the Espionage Act of 1917.
In criminal law, a mistake of fact may sometimes mean that, while a person has committed the physical element of an offence, because they were labouring under a mistake of fact, they never formed the mental element. This is unlike a mistake of law, which is not usually a defense; law enforcement may or may not take for granted that individuals know what the law is.
Fair comment is a legal term for a common law defense in defamation cases. It is referred to as honest comment in some countries.
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is a wide-ranging measure introduced to modernise many areas of the criminal justice system in England and Wales and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Large portions of the act were repealed and replaced by the Sentencing Act 2020.
In English criminal law, intention is one of the types of mens rea that, when accompanied by an actus reus, constitutes a crime.
Self-defence is a defence permitting reasonable force to be used to defend one's self or another. This defence arises both from common law and the Criminal Law Act 1967. Self-defence is a justification defence rather than an excuse.
Duress in English law is a complete common law defence, operating in favour of those who commit crimes because they are forced or compelled to do so by the circumstances, or the threats of another. The doctrine arises not only in criminal law but also in civil law, where it is relevant to contract law and trusts law.
In English law, provocation was a mitigatory defence to murder which had taken many guises over generations many of which had been strongly disapproved and modified. In closing decades, in widely upheld form, it amounted to proving a reasonable total loss of control as a response to another's objectively provocative conduct sufficient to convert what would otherwise have been murder into manslaughter. It only applied to murder. It was abolished on 4 October 2010 by section 56(1) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, but thereby replaced by the superseding—and more precisely worded—loss of control defence.
In the English law of homicide, manslaughter is a less serious offence than murder, the differential being between levels of fault based on the mens rea or by reason of a partial defence. In England and Wales, a common practice is to prefer a charge of murder, with the judge or defence able to introduce manslaughter as an option. The jury then decides whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of either murder or manslaughter. On conviction for manslaughter, sentencing is at the judge's discretion, whereas a sentence of life imprisonment is mandatory on conviction for murder. Manslaughter may be either voluntary or involuntary, depending on whether the accused has the required mens rea for murder.
In the law of England and Wales, fitness to plead is the capacity of a defendant in criminal proceedings to comprehend the course of those proceedings. The concept of fitness to plead also applies in Scots and Irish law. Its United States equivalent is competence to stand trial.
No case for the defendant to answer is a term in the criminal law of some Commonwealth states, whereby a defendant seeks acquittal without having to present a defence, because of the insufficiency of the prosecution's case. The motion is infrequently used in civil cases where the defendant asserts that the plaintiff's case is insufficient to prove liability.
A Newton hearing or inquiry is a legal procedure in English law originating in the early 1980s, used where the two sides offer such conflicting evidence that a judge sitting alone tries to ascertain which party is telling the truth. It is generally used when a defendant pleads guilty to an offence, but factual issues need to be resolved between the prosecution and defence.
Evidential burden or "production burden" is the obligation to produce evidence to properly raise an issue at trial. Failure to satisfy the evidential burden means that an issue cannot be raised at a court of law.
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 criteria have evolved throughout English case law.
DPP v Morgan[1975] UKHL 3 was a decision of the House of Lords which decided that an honest belief by a man that a woman with whom he was engaged with sexual intercourse was consenting was a defence to rape, irrespective of whether that belief was based on reasonable grounds. This case was superseded by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which came into force on 1 May 2004.
References
- ↑ Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice 2014, at 4-235, page 431
- ↑ reported at BAILII link - [2008] EWCA Crim 3059
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