Loss of Control and Diminished Responsibility: Domestic, Comparative and International Perspectives

This book provides a leading point of reference in the field of partial defences to murder and with respect to the mental condition defences of loss of control and diminished responsibility in general. The work includes contributions from leading specialists from different jurisdictions. Divided into two parts, the first provides an analysis from the perspective of the UK, looking at particular concerns such as domestic violence, revenge and mixed motive killings, mistaken beliefs. The second part presents a comparative and international view to provide a wider background of how alternative systems treat issues of human frailty short of full insanity (loss of control, diminished responsibility) in the context of the criminal law.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Preface; Introduction, Alan Reed and Michael Bohlander; The new diminished responsibility plea: more than mere modernisation?, Ronnie Mackay; The modern partial defence of diminished responsibility, Rudi Fortson; Loss of self-control under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009: oh no!, Barry Mitchell; The model of tolerance and self-restraint, Richard Taylor; The serious wrong of domestic abuse and the loss of control defence, Jonathan Herring; Loss of self-control: when his anger is worth more than her fear, Susan S.M. Edwards; Feminism, 'typical' women, and losing control, Neil Cobb and Anna Gausden; Sexual infidelity killings: contemporary standardisations and comparative stereotypes, Alan Reed and Nicola Wake; Killing in response : to 'circumstances of an extremely grave character': improving the law on homicide, Jesse Elvin; The view from Ireland, John E. Stannard; Partial defences to murder in Scotland: an unlikely tranquillity, James Chalmers; Anglo-American perspectives on partial defences: something old, something borrowed, and something new, Alan Reed and Nicola Wake; Provoking a range of responses: the provocation defence in British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, Claire de Than; A comparative analysis of English and French defences to demonstrate the limitations of the concept of loss of control, Catherine Elliott; When the bough breaks - defences and sentencing options available in battered women and similar scenarios under German criminal law, Michael Bohlander; Partial defences to murder in New Zealand, Warren Brookbanks; Abnormal mental state mitigations or murder: the US perspective, Paul H. Robinson; The conflation of provocation and justification: an analysis of partial defences to murder in Islamic law, Mohammed M. Hedayati-Kakhki; Provocation and diminished responsibility in Dutch homicide law, Hein D. Wolswijk; Partial defences due to loss of control and diminished responsibility under Spanish criminal law, Manuel Cancio Me

About the Author :
Michael Bohlander is Professor of Law, Durham University. Before joining Durham Law School in 2004, he had been a member of the German judiciary since 1991. From 1999 until 2001 he served as the Senior Legal Officer of a Trial Chamber at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague. In 2010, Professor Bohlander was appointed to the Visiting Chair in Criminal Law at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. He has published 10 books and over 110 articles, essays, chapters etc. His publications have been cited widely by and before courts in several domestic and international jurisdictions. Alan Reed graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge University with a First Class Honours Degree in Law, and was awarded the Herbert Smith Prize for Conflict of Laws and the Dr Lancey Prize. Cambridge University awarded him a full Holland Scholarship to facilitate study in the United States and he obtained an LLM Master's of Law (Comparative Law) at the University of Virginia. After completion of the Law Society Finals Examinations he spent three years in practice in London at Addlshaw Goddard, and also acted as a Tutor in Criminal Law at Trinity College, Cambridge. He spent seven years as a lecturer in law at Leeds University, and from September 2001 has been engaged as Professor of Criminal and Private International Law at Sunderland University. Alan has published over 200 monographs, textbooks and articles in the substantive arena in leading journals in England, Australia, New York, Florida and Los Angeles. For the last 10 years he has been editor of the Journal of Criminal Law.

Review :
'This book is a notable contribution to the debate about partial defences to murder in cases of loss of self-control. The authors analyse and evaluate this question not just in the UK, but in other jurisdictions, presenting a comparative view of this defence in cases of domestic abuse, self-defence of battered women, sexual infidelity killings and provocation, giving us a balanced and comprehensive perspective from different legal views and cultures.' Francisco Muñoz-Conde, Universidad Pablo Olavide, Spain