Mental Disease and Criminal Responsibility

[Assassination of Henri IV, mental disorders and criminal responsibility].

On 14th May 1610, François Ravaillac, a delusional mystic, assassinated King Henri IV. Under the Ancien Regime, regicide was considered as a supreme act of patricide and received the ultimate punishment even if the perpetrator showed obvious signs of insanity. What would the situation be today? A study of this notorious historical episode provides a reflection on the way dangerousness linked to...

Criminal Responsibility

are not always evident to the man in the street and are particularly easy to neglect when involved in the highly sensational atmosphere of a murder trial; this is of course particularly so if the details are horrific or sexual or both and if a plea of insanity is raised in defence. It may therefore be helpful to re-state the points at issue. The first point is that lawyers and doctors talk in d...

Criminal Responsibility

the definition of a crime has never yet been clearly made. A crime has been described as a result of human conduct, which it is the policy of the governing power in the state to prevent. Usually it is followed by a punishment , but this was not always so. In early years, suffering was imposed on the wrongdoer, and in Roman times expiation was necessary to placate the offended gods. That which d...

Amnesia and criminal responsibility

INTRODUCTION Under common law, criminal responsibility usually distinguishes between intentional act and accident, andmost serious criminal offenses consist of both a voluntary act and a guilty mind.1 This treatment presumes that no defendant should be held criminally responsible without a finding of fault. Despite this long-standing conceptual commitment to fairness, criminal law continues to ...

Intoxication and Criminal Responsibility