CRIMINAL LAW

Criminal law

Criminal law

Advice Walter a) is he the cause of Angela's death? Referring to the scenario Walter is liable for the death of Angela but the drug administration provided to Angela by the hospital is also liable for wrong administration of drug usage and wrong diagnosis a professional negligence on the part of the medical inspection given to Angela. And violating the duty to care aspect in treatment provision. According to the mental health act sect 3 1983 and the criminal liability Walter should not have physically hit Angela.(Feller 2008 Pp. 40) although being a Schizophrenic persevering the school should have been to blame to care of such scholars who suffer from any mental or personal disease. Defendants have advanced related arguments to rebut the mental state (mens rea) element of the crime, although, based on a review of appellate records in U.S. cases, only a few defendants have offered evidence of a behavioural predisposition for this purpose. In one of the few noted examples of such a assertion in the U.S., Statev. Davis, the defendant argued that his mental condition, to which he was genetically predisposed, prevented him from forming the requisite intent to commit first-degree murder, reckless endangerment, or possession of a weapon on school property. In support of this defence, he presented psychiatric testimony that he had a 'genetic predisposition' for depression and mental illness, shown by the history of severe depression in his family. The jury rejected his claim, and the court affirmed on appeal, noting that the objective manifestations of Davis's behaviour prior to and during the commission of the alleged crime properly informed the jury's determination of his mental state.(Ashworth C. 2007 Pp. 44) R v Sullivan [1984] AC 156. The defendant kicked and hurt a man during a minor epileptic fit. The trial judge directed that he was prepared to direct the committee on the protection of insanity, but not that of automatism. The House of Lords held that epilepsy was a disease of the brain because the defendant's mental abilities were impaired to the extent of initating a defect of reason. It was irrelevant that this was an organic infection which was only intermittent. It would furthermore be irrelevant if it were only temporary. Lord Diplock stated: 'The purpose of the legislation relating to the defence of insanity, ever since its origin in 1800, has been to protect society against the recurrence of the dangerous conduct. The length of a provisional suspension of the mental faculties of cause, memory and comprehending, especially if, as in the appellant's case, it is recurrent, will not on any rational ground be applicable to the submission by the enclosures of the McNaghten directions, though it may be applicable to the course taken up by the Secretary of State, to whom the responsibility for how the defendant is to be administered with passes after the come back of the exceptional decision of "not guilty by reason of insanity".

Although genetic predisposition testimony has likewise been introduced to establish ...