"I don't think so Sonny-Jim"

If you watch Big Brother, then you'll 'get' the reference. As I imagine, not very many lawyers and academics would own up to watching the show. I do. I think I'm a little bit in love with 'Halfwit'. He's actually quite an intelligent, eloquent character. Watch his telling off of Noirin...




Funny chappie!

On another note, on reading the latest law reports on The Times Online, I found the one entitled, 'Guidance for juries when alcoholism is raised as a defence to murder' really interesting. I suppose there is a difference between an isolated drunken incident which resulted in a murder compared to that of a seasoned alcoholic. The report stated that,

"Their Lordships had concluded that the effect of the directions to the jury was that the defence of diminished responsibility would not be available if the jury found that any of the appellant’s drinking was voluntary. Save semantically, that was indistinguishable from the direction in
Wood and, for the same reasons, constituted a misdirection. "

This would suggest that where the drinking was an isolated incident and that the defendant was not alcohol dependant, the defence of diminished responsibility would not be applicable. The report also referred to this dependency as a disease or underlying 'condition' that the jury would need to consider and that the killing was an 'involuntary result of an irresistible craving for or compulsion to drink.'

So, the defendant in such an instance would need to firstly prove that some form of 'abnormality' of the mind existed and then whether there was a link between this abnormality and the 'disease' or illness. Because of experiences with alcohol (not personally, but close enough) I find it difficult to accept that alcoholism is in fact a 'disease' and that dependency on alcohol is a valid defence to a murder when to me it seems a self inflicted, voluntary 'condition'

Overall, some of the issues which are said to be likely to arise in similar cases are the following:

"(a) the extent and seriousness of the defendant’s dependency, if any, on alcohol,
(b) the extent to which his ability to control his drinking or to choose whether to drink or not, was reduced,
(c) whether he was capable of abstinence from alcohol, and if so,
(d) for how long, and,
(e) whether he was choosing for some particular reason to decide to get drunk or to drink even more than usual. "

and the jury would be invited to come to their own conclusions based on these factors. In my opinion: Alcohol an excuse?

I don't think so Sonny-Jim!

CBC

xx

Article/ Report taken from Times Online.