Quote:
Originally Posted by dr2005
No problem - happy to help.  It helps justify the tuition fees for one thing! |
LOL
Quote:
Originally Posted by dr2005
We still have the rather archaic "not guilty by reason of insanity" or insanity defence, which is basically the same thing - it stems from the M'Naghten Rules much like most common law approaches do. We also have a subdivision for murder called "not guilty by reason of diminished responsibility" which reduces it to manslaughter and another mitigating factor called "state of temporary mental impairment" which can depending on the circumstances result in either reduction of sentence or acquittal. It's very convoluted and not without a lot of criticism, particularly as none of them have a particularly strong medical basis. The whole area has been recommended for reform on a number of occasions but has never made it through Parliament unfortunately.
|
Wow. I'm not studying law but from the courses I've taken such as forensic psychology with FBI profilers and such, in Canada there's only NCRMD or NCR. I remember learning about the M'Naughten Rules, kind of ironic how a massive chaotic mistake brings about chaos when trying to from the "insanity plea" even to this day. I believe it can also reduce the sentence down to something less but I'm not sure if that's some other similar legal term. The last one we have also but it's pretty much like the NCRMD, which is a "heat of the moment", took so many drugs at the time you couldn't tell up from down or whether you were living on the Sun or Pluto. Most of them don't have strong medical evidence but I'll have to check the actual legal code, in Canada at one point psychologists and/or psychiatrists couldn't discuss behaviour when called as an expert witness because they weren't qualified, yet "qualified individuals" were allowed (never said who those people are though). Although that silly thing got removed, it goes to show that on different continents for the same issue, the law is so over-complicated it makes the brain look simple (coming from someone who studies in the field of neuro lol).