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Austrlian mental impairement and sentencing advice:
1. reduce the offender's moral culpability (but not his or her legal responsibility) for the offence – this could affect the weight given to just punishment and denunciation as purposes of sentencing the offender
2. influence the type of sentence that could be imposed and the conditions in which the sentence could be served
3. reduce the weight given to deterrence as a purpose of sentencing – this would depend on the nature and severity of the mental impairment and how this impairment affected the mental capacity of the offender at the time of his or her offending and at the time of sentencing
4. Increase the hardship experienced by an offender in prison if he or she suffered from mental impairment at the time of sentencing
5. justify a less severe sentence where there was a serious risk that imprisonment could have a significant adverse effect on the offender's mental health.
Link
mental illness that either 1. doesn't allow a person to tell right from wrong, or 2. allows a person to see right from wrong but compels him to do wrong.
originally posted by: glend
There are court proceedings underway in Australia for a person accussed for the murder of six people, including a 10 yo girl and a 4 month old baby boy, when he drove his car down a busy Melbourne pedestrian footpath. Media states he is blaming the events on the illuminati. Saying he was under extreme stress which caused his mental breakdown. ...
It appears mental impairment may be used as a defence.
My question is can a sane person kill? Couldn't we say all murderers are mentally impaired, without exception?
Personally I don't understand the logic of mental impairement being used as a defence in murder trials.
That anyone who murders, except cases of self defense, have already proved they are mentally impaired and unfit to be free among the community. In these cases, shouldn't governments mandate that people found guilty be given a life sentence without parole?
Of course sane people can kill, it's done all the time. Governments give their soldiers license to murder people they don't even know.
My question is can a sane person kill? Couldn't we say all murderers are mentally impaired, without exception?