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Criminal Law: Irresponsibility defences (Diminished responsibility …

- - - - Hyperglycaemia from diabetes, uncorrected by insulin -> insanity verdict
        (Hennessey [1989] 2 All E.R. 9)
      - e.g. hit by boxing -> brain damage is an enduring internal condition existing by its own right, even if caused by external cause -> insanity okay
      - Sleepwalking
        (Burgess [1991] 2 W.L.R 1206)
        UK -> yes
        cf. Can -> no, taking a more holistic view of "insanity" as needing something more significant than just a legal term of art; stepped back a little from technical criteria (Parks (1992))
      - Psychomotor epilepsy -> insanity
        (Sullivan [1983] 2 All E.R. 673)
    - - Hypoglycaemia, arising from insulin taken for diabetes -> sane automatism -> full acquittal
        (Quick [1973] Q.B. 910.)
    - - Would a normal person have reacted to the external cause as D did? no -> internal cause
        
        ordinary stresses of life do not constitute a sufficient external cause
        
        internal cause for dissociative state
        (Rabey [1978] CanCA)
        
        threshold may seem low, but have to satisfy the other two conditions as well! (2) (3a) (3b)
  - - - Only when the "irresistible impulse" when it is so overwhelming as to render D incapable to knowing what he was doing or that it was wrong or contrary to law
        (State v Inush Ali 1982 Cri LJ 1044, 1048 (Gau HC); Jusoh v PP [1963] MLJ 84)
- - - - whether, disregarding the disinhibiting effect of the drink, D’s mental responsibility for the killing was substantially impaired by an abnormality of mind falling within the definition of the defence.
        must partially explain why he did it
  - - - Substantial
        
        more than trivial or nominal (Llyod [1967])
        
        falling significantly below normal understanding, or an appreciable gap