Criminal law (case study) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Criminal law (case study) - Essay eventActus reus of murder (and manslaughter) is the unlawful act thats done deliberately and is a significant cause of death of roughly person. If the court is able to farm that the defendant had intention to kill (that is, mens rea) then it is murder, not manslaughter.Running from menage in panic, Joe pushed his brother who hurt himself when hit the ground. Later his brother went home and died at night from aim trauma. Joe can be accused both of battery and manslaughter. Since thither is an ambiguity about the term jot concerning battery (e.g., the Court of Appeal in Wilson v Pringle 1986 2 All ER 440 stated that to prove battery the touching must be proved to be a hostile touching), we pull up stakes analyze the third case later.Post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder in which a particularly stressful event, such as military combat, rape, or a natural disaster, brings in its aftermath invasive mental images of experiencing a t raumatic event, emotional numbness and detachment, estrangement from others2 etc.One of the common responses of pot with PTSD is un go overlable behaviour that can be expressed in fits of anger (Chemtob et al., 1997) towards other persons or even assault on them. According to Mental Health Act 1983, there are contrastive kinds of PTSD patients treatment, e.g., hospitalisation, guardianship, supervision and treatment. The story tells us nothing about it, but since it will be essential later, we assume two probable situations there was no medical treatment and control of Joes disorder there was medical supervision and treatment, but Joe was considered harmless at that time as there were no much measures provided.Having had flashback caused by victims actions, Joe had lost the sense of reality and behaved according to his traumatic experience. The victim screamed and it caused Joe to have an imaginary occur in the traumatic situation and probably to treat the victim as an enemy sol dier. Joes mind has created a delusive situation in which ex-soldier believed that his actions are correct such belief in moral and lawful rightfulness is the first reason to advance diminished responsibility (see Bratty v AG for northern Ireland (1963) AC 386 at 409).The second factor is total loss of control. Since there were cases when partial loss of control didnt make an acquittal (e.g., in Broome v Perkins (1987) Crim LR 271), the defendant must prove that he had no contingency to control his actions, for the burden of proof in the case of insanity lies with the defendant.Then we must prove that every insanity or automatism took place. The factor that triggered flashback was external that should prove automatism, but Joes replys were atypical because of his mental illness that is the internal factor. There is an opinion that if the defendant loses control because of an illness, that is, some internal factor, he can only plead insanity (Hill v Baxter (1958) 1 QB 277). But there is the external factor in our case, the victims scream. We should point that Joes reaction was atypical and unexpected, and also can refer to the case of R v Rabey (1997) (Canadian case), in which defendant buffet his