Citation

McCay A, Ryan CJ. Int. J. Law Psychiatry 2018; ePub(ePub): 101409.

Affiliation

Discipline of Psychiatry and Sydney Health Ethics, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijlp.2018.11.006

PMID

30591221

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on, a significant Australian sentencing appeal in which, after hearing expert evidence pertaining to cognitive function, brain scans, and neuropsychological testing, the Court imposed a less severe sentence than that originally imposed. Our aim is to produce an interdisciplinary critical analysis of the decision, and we approach this by analysing the judicial comments on the evidence pertaining to the offender's mental condition, and the reasoning about punishment. We conclude that the Court's inferences about frontal lobe damage and likely dementia are contestable, and the reasoning about mitigation of punishment based on these questionable inferences could have been improved by a focus on sentencing's retributive aim.

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Criminal law; Dementia; Mitigation; Moral agency; Neurolaw; Neuroscience; Punishment; Sentencing