Defences To Crime

The law relating to general defences is one of the most important areas in the criminal law, yet the current state of the law in the United Kingdom reveals significant problems in the adoption of a consistent approach to their doctrinal and theoretical underpinnings, as exemplified by a number of recent developments in legislation and case law. A coherent and joined-up approach is still missing. This volume provides an analysis of the main contentious areas in British law, and proposes ways forward for reform. The collection includes contributions from leading experts across various jurisdictions. Part I examines the law in the United Kingdom, with specialist contributions on Irish and Scottish law. Part II consists of contributions by authors from a number of foreign jurisdictions, all written to a common research grid for maximum comparability, which provide a wider background of how other legal systems treat problems relating to general defences in the context of the criminal law, and which may serve as points of reference for domestic law reform.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK “Despite the existing scholarly literature on criminal defences, many issues remain contested or unresolved. Dr Dsouza offers a thorough and scholarly treatment of a complex topic which can be expected to become a point of reference for future work in the field.” Professor James Chalmers, University of Glasgow “Mark Dsouza has produced an engaging, incisive and cogently argued monograph, that makes an original contribution to criminal law theory. Required reading for scholars and graduate students working on criminal law defences.” Professor Paul Roberts, University of Nottingham Although it is often accepted that rationale-based defences to criminal liability can be justificatory or excusatory, disagreements about how best to conceptualise the categories of justification and excuse have appeared so interminable that some theorists argue that they should be abandoned altogether. This book offers a novel, principled, and intuitively appealing conceptual account of the natures of justifications and excuses, showing how they differ, and why the distinction between them matters. The monograph breaks new ground by defending a model of rationale-based defences that turns solely on the quality of the defendant's reasoning. This model is shown to generate appealing liability outcomes, advance convincing solutions to questions that have puzzled criminal lawyers for years, and offer suggestions for doctrinal reform that are both normatively sound, and practical. By proposing new ways to think about defences, this book makes an original contribution to criminal law theory that will be of benefit to academics, practitioners, and persons interested in law reform.

This major study advances an interpretation of criminal justification defences that views them as an integral component of the structure of the criminal law. A definition of criminal law is included in this book.

In what circumstances should we be allowed to kill an intruder who breaks into our home? Should battered women be forgiven for killing their husbands? This book analyses the questions raised by the argument of self-defence, and offers a theoretical framework for understanding the defence in the context of human rights norms.

Criminal law has struggled to keep pace with developments in psychiatry, both in substantive and procedural terms, and it is widely recognised that increased inter-disciplinary discussion of mental condition defences is required in order to address this gap between the law and psychiatry. This edited collection comes at a time of review of this sensitive area of criminal law. The Law Commission for England and Wales recently placed its evaluation of insanity, automatism and intoxication on hold, while it considers the law on unfitness to plead. These reviews are set against the backdrop of earlier Law Commission reports on partial defences to murder which informed significant changes that were made to the law in this area under sections 52–56 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Recent developments in case law in this substantive area illustrate not only the importance of the role of the medical expert, but also that reform in this area is informed by ongoing inter-disciplinary research. This collection brings together medical and legal conceptions of mental disorder in order to appraise the operation of mental condition defences. In this respect, it provides invaluable and original insights into mental condition defences and criminal law.