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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. The double jeopardy protection in criminal prosecutions bars only an identical prosecution for the same offence; however, a different offence may be charged on identical evidence at a second trial. Res judicata protection is stronger – it precludes any causes of action or claims that arise from a previously litigated subject matter.
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. Versions have 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.
A crime of passion, in popular usage, refers to a violent crime, especially homicide, in which the perpetrator commits the act against someone because of sudden strong impulse such as anger or jealousy rather than as a premeditated crime. A high level of social and legal acceptance of crimes of passion has been historically associated with France from the 19th century to the 1970s, and until recently with Latin America.
The defence of property is a common method of justification used by defendants who argue that they should not be held liable for any loss and injury that they have caused because they were acting to protect their property.
In law, provocation is when a person is considered to have committed a criminal act partly because of a preceding set of events that might cause a reasonable individual to lose self control. This makes them less morally culpable than if the act was premeditated (pre-planned) and done out of pure malice. It "affects the quality of the actor's state of mind as an indicator of moral blameworthiness."
In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge. In a bench trial, the judge's decision near the end of the trial is simply referred to as a finding. In England and Wales, a coroner's findings used to be called verdicts but are, since 2009, called conclusions.
Battered woman syndrome (BWS) is a pattern of signs and symptoms displayed by a woman who has suffered persistent intimate partner violence—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 signs of physical injury or illness, such as bruises, broken bones, or chronic fatigue.
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 English law, diminished responsibility is one of the partial defenses that reduce the offense from murder to manslaughter if successful. This allows the judge sentencing discretion, e.g. to impose a hospital order under section 37 of the Mental Health Act 1983 to ensure treatment rather than punishment in appropriate cases. Thus, when the actus reus of death is accompanied by an objective or constructive version of mens rea, the subjective evidence that the defendant did intend to kill or cause grievous bodily harm because of a mental incapacity will partially excuse his conduct. Under s.2(2) of the Homicide Act 1957 the burden of proof is on the defendant to the balance of probabilities. The M'Naghten Rules lack a volitional limb of "irresistible impulse"; diminished responsibility is the volitional mental condition defense in English criminal law.
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.
R v Quick [1973] QB 910 is an English criminal case, as to sane automatism and the sub-category of self-inducement of such a state. The court ruled that it may not be used as a defence if the defendant's loss of self-control was on the part of negligence in consuming or not consuming something which someone ought to but the jury must be properly directed so as to make all relevant findings of fact. The ruling stresses that automatism is usually easily distinct from insanity, in the few cases where the lines are blurred it is a complex problem for prosecutors and mental health professionals.
R v Bailey is a 1983 decision of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales considering criminal responsibility as to non-insane automatism. The broad questions addressed were whether a hampered state of mind, which the accused may have a legal and moral duty to lessen or avoid, gave him a legal excuse for his actions; and whether as to any incapacity there was strong countering evidence on the facts involved. The court ruled that the jury had been misdirected as to the effect of a defendant's mental state on his criminal liability. However, Bailey's defence had not been supported by sufficient evidence to support an acquittal and his appeal was dismissed.
English criminal law concerns offences, their prevention and the consequences, in England and Wales. Criminal conduct is considered to be a wrong against the whole of a community, rather than just the private individuals affected. The state, in addition to certain international organisations, has responsibility for crime prevention, for bringing the culprits to justice, and for dealing with convicted offenders. The police, the criminal courts and prisons are all publicly funded services, though the main focus of criminal law concerns the role of the courts, how they apply criminal statutes and common law, and why some forms of behaviour are considered criminal. The fundamentals of a crime are a guilty act and a guilty mental state. The traditional view is that moral culpability requires that a defendant should have recognised or intended that they were acting wrongly, although in modern regulation a large number of offences relating to road traffic, environmental damage, financial services and corporations, create strict liability that can be proven simply by the guilty act.
R v Davis [2008] UKHL 36 is a decision of the United Kingdom House of Lords which considered the permissibility of allowing witnesses to give evidence anonymously. In 2002 two men were shot and killed at a party, allegedly by the defendant, Ian Davis. He was extradited from the United States and tried at the Central Criminal Court for two counts of murder in 2004. He was convicted by the jury and appealed. The decision of the House of Lords in June 2008 led to Parliament passing the Criminal Evidence Act 2008 a month later. This legislation was later replaced by sections 86 to 97 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
The Nancy Kissel murder case was a highly publicised criminal trial held in the High Court of Hong Kong, where American expatriate Nancy Ann Kissel was convicted of the murder of her husband, 40-year-old investment banker Robert Peter Kissel, in their apartment on 2 November 2003. It was arguably the highest profile criminal case involving an expatriate in Hong Kong's history, and was closely covered in the media.
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.
Sir Brian Henry Leveson is a retired English judge who served as the President of the Queen's Bench Division and Head of Criminal Justice.
Regina v Armel Gnango[2011] UKSC 59 is the leading English criminal law case on the interaction of joint enterprise, transferred malice, and exemption from criminal liability where a party to what would normally be a crime is the victim of it. The Supreme Court held, restoring Gnango's conviction for the murder of Magda Pniewska, that he was guilty of murder notwithstanding the fact that he had not fired the shot which killed Pniewska during the shoot out which led to her death, and that the fatal shot had been fired by his opponent in an attempt to kill him. The judgment of the Supreme Court has been criticised over the alleged extent to which it was designed to mollify public opinion, and in the context of debates over the nature of the doctrine of joint enterprise.
R v Evans and McDonald was the prosecution of two footballers, Ched Evans and Clayton McDonald, who were accused of the rape of a woman. On 20 April 2012, Evans was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment. McDonald was acquitted. Several people were later fined after naming the woman on Twitter and other social media websites.
R v Jogee[2016] UKSC 8 was a 2016 judgment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom that reversed previous case law on joint enterprise. The Supreme Court delivered its ruling jointly with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which was considering an appeal from Jamaica, Ruddock v The Queen [2016] UKPC 7.
References
- ↑ "New trial ordered in 'loss of control' murder case". The Irish Times . 13 February 2012. Archived from the original on 2 September 2021. Retrieved 2 September 2021.
- ↑ "Jon-Jaques Clinton jailed for murder of wife Dawn". BBC News. 4 September 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2024.
- ↑ Baird, Vera (23 January 2012). "'Infidelity plus' – the new defence against murder". The Guardian . ISSN 1756-3224. Archived from the original on 2 September 2021. Retrieved 2 September 2021.