Automatism (law)
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Automatism (law)
In criminal law, automatism is a rarely used criminal defence. It is one of the mental condition defences that relate to the mental state of the defendant. Automatism can be seen variously as lack of voluntariness, lack of culpability (unconsciousness) or excuse. Automatism means that the defendant was not aware of his or her actions when making the particular movements that constituted the illegal act. For example, Esther Griggs in 1858 threw her child out of a first floor window believing that the house was on fire, while having a sleep terror. In 2002, Peter Buck, lead guitarist of the band R.E.M., was cleared of several charges, including assault, which resulted from automatism brought on by a bad interaction between alcohol and sleeping pills. In a 2009 case in Aberporth in west Wales, Brian Thomas strangled his wife in their camper van, also during a sleep terror, when he mistook his wife for an intruder. The defence of automatism is denying that the person was acting ...
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Criminal Law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law is established by statute, which is to say that the laws are enacted by a legislature. Criminal law includes the punishment and rehabilitation of people who violate such laws. Criminal law varies according to jurisdiction, and differs from civil law, where emphasis is more on dispute resolution and victim compensation, rather than on punishment or rehabilitation. Criminal procedure is a formalized official activity that authenticates the fact of commission of a crime and authorizes punitive or rehabilitative treatment of the offender. History The first civilizations generally did not distinguish between civil law and criminal law. The first written codes of law were designed by the Sumerians. Around 2100–2050 BC Ur-Nammu, the N ...
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Homicidal Sleepwalking
Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulism or noctambulism, is a phenomenon of combined sleep and wakefulness. It is classified as a sleep disorder belonging to the parasomnia family. It occurs during slow wave stage of sleep, in a state of low consciousness, with performance of activities that are usually performed during a state of full consciousness. These activities can be as benign as talking, sitting up in bed, walking to a bathroom, consuming food, and cleaning, or as hazardous as cooking, driving a motor vehicle, violent gestures and grabbing at hallucinated objects.Swanson, Jenifer, ed. "Sleepwalking". ''Sleep Disorders Sourcebook''. MI: Omnigraphics, 1999. 249–254, 351–352. Although sleepwalking cases generally consist of simple, repeated behaviors, there are occasionally reports of people performing complex behaviors while asleep, although their legitimacy is often disputed. Sleepwalkers often have little or no memory of the incident, as their consciousness has ...
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Garfield Barwick
Sir Garfield Edward John Barwick, (22 June 190313 July 1997) was an Australian judge who was the seventh and longest serving Chief Justice of Australia, in office from 1964 to 1981. He had earlier been a Liberal Party politician, serving as a minister in the Menzies government from 1958 to 1964. Barwick was born in Sydney, and attended Fort Street High School before going on to study law at the University of Sydney. He was called to the bar in 1927 and became one of Australia's most prominent barristers, appearing in many high-profile cases and frequently before the High Court. He served terms as president of the NSW Bar Association and the Law Council of Australia. Barwick entered politics only at the age of 54, winning election to the House of Representatives at the 1958 Parramatta by-election. Prime Minister Robert Menzies made him Attorney-General by the end of the year, and in 1961 he was additionally made Minister for External Affairs. In 1964, Menzies nominated ...
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Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.") This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction (area), jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of Malice (law), ''malice'',This is "malice" in a technical legal sense, not the more usual English sense denoting an emotional state. See malice (law). brought about by reasonable Provocation (legal), provocation, or diminished capacity. Involuntary manslaughter, ''Involuntary'' manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most a ...
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Commonwealth Law Reports
The Commonwealth Law Reports (CLR) () are the authorised reports of decisions of the High Court of Australia. The Commonwealth Law Reports are published by the Lawbook Company, a division of Thomson Reuters. James Merralls AM QC was the editor of the Reports from 1969 until his death in 2016. The current editors are Christopher Horan KC and Paul Vout KC. Each reported judgment includes a headnote written by an expert reporter (by convention, a practising barrister) which, as an authorised report, has been approved by the High Court. The current reporters are as follows: * Roshan Chaile * Ella Delany * Bora Kaplan * Rudi Kruse * James McComish * William Newland * Alistair Pound SC * Daniel Reynolds * Alexander Solomon-Bridge * Julia Wang * Michael Wells * Jillian Williams * Radhika Withana The headnotes include a summary of counsel's legal arguments. The Reports also include tables of cases reported, affirmed, reversed, overruled, applied or judicially commented on and cited ...
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James Burrows Thomas
The Honourable Justice James Burrows Thomas AM KC (born 12 March 1935) was a judge on the Supreme Court of Queensland (1998–2002), which is the highest ranking court in the Australian State of Queensland. Personal James Burrows Thomas was born on 12 March 1935 to Joseph Thomas and Norma Thomas (née Burrows). Thomas brought an unusually broad knowledge of life into his judicial career commencing his education at a public school and being a former builder's labourer.Retirement Speech - Thomas JA
, ''Queensland Courts'', 23 March 2002

, ''Queensland Courts'', 10 March 2003
He went to school at

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Australian Criminal Reports
Law reports covering the decisions of Australian Courts are collections of decisions by particulars courts, subjects or jurisdictions. A widely used guide to case citation in Australia is the '' Australian Guide to Legal Citation'', published jointly by the '' Melbourne University Law Review'' and the '' Melbourne Journal of International Law''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Law Reports in Australia List of Law Reports in Australia Law reports covering the decisions of Australian Courts are collections of decisions by particulars courts, subjects or jurisdictions. A widely used guide to case citation in Australia is the ''Australian Guide to Legal Citation'', published ... Case law reporters Australian law-related lists ...
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Deterrence (psychological)
Deterrence in relation to criminal offending is the idea or penology, theory that the threat of punishment will deter people from committing crime and reduce the probability and/or level of offending in society. It is one of five objectives that punishment is thought to achieve; the other four objectives are denunciation (penology), denunciation, Incapacitation (penology), incapacitation (for the protection of society), retributive justice, retribution and Rehabilitation (penology), rehabilitation. Criminal deterrence theory has two possible applications: the first is that punishments imposed on individual offenders will deter or prevent that particular offender from committing further crimes; the second is that public knowledge that certain offences will be punished has a generalised deterrent effect which prevents others from committing crimes. Two different aspects of punishment may have an impact on deterrence, the first being the ''certainty of punishment'', by increasing the ...
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Punishment
Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular action or behavior that is deemed undesirable or unacceptable. It is, however, possible to distinguish between various different understandings of what punishment is. The reasoning for punishment may be to condition a child to avoid self-endangerment, to impose social conformity (in particular, in the contexts of compulsory education or military discipline), to defend norms, to protect against future harms (in particular, those from violent crime), and to maintain the law—and respect for rule of law—under which the social group is governed. and violates the law or rules by which the group is governed. Punishment may be self-inflicted as with self-flagellation and mortification of the flesh in the religious setting, but is mos ...
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Criminal Appeal Reports
The Criminal Appeal Reports are a series of law reports of decisions of the Court of Criminal Appeal, the criminal division of the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords from 15 May 1908 onwards. They are published by Sweet & Maxwell. Publication began in 1909 and have been edited by Daniel Janner since 1994. As of 2008, they were published ten times each year. For the purpose of citation, their name may be abbreviated to "Cr App R", or to "CAR". Glanville Williams criticised the layout of the index in each volume of these reports. Volume 1 contains, in addition to the reports, a copy of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907, sections 9(5) and (6) of the Costs in Criminal Cases Act 1908, the Criminal Appeal (Amendment) Act 1908, section 11 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1908 and section 99(6) of the Children Act 1908.Herman Cohen (Editor). The Criminal Appeal Reports with subject index, tables of cases and statutes cited, and the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, and amending and exte ...
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Weekly Law Reports
The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales (ICLR) is a registered charity based in London, England, that publishes law reports of English law. The company is widely recognised as a reputable producer of reports (and the only 'official' source), which are used by students, academics, journalists, lawyers and judges across the country. History The ICLR was founded in 1865 by W. T. S. Daniel QC, and its first meeting took place on 25 February at Westminster Hall, then the home of the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas and the Court of Chancery. The council was incorporated under the Companies Act 1862 in 1870. Largely working "as a private enterprise without state aid or interference," the council "was not intended to be profit-making except in so far as it was necessary to make it self-supporting." Working on this principle, the Council applied in 1966 for registration to become an official charity under section 4 of thCharities Act 1960 Upon reje ...
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R V Burgess
R v Burgess 9912 QB 92 was an appeal in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales that adjudged sleepwalking entailing violence from an internal, organic cause amounts to insane automatism. At first instance he was likewise found not guilty ''by reason of insanity'' as his case fell under the M'Naghten Rules. This would entail a possible stigma and a treatment plan. His defence team appealed arguing such automatism was no form of 'insanity' but fell within the class of automatism such as a spiked drink which could show a complete lack of ''mens rea In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action (or lack of action) would cause a crime to be committed. It is considered a necessary element ...'', outwith the realms of normal mental health, to make him guilty. The court ruled that violent sleepwalking with no external triggers was considered insane automatism. Thus the appeal ...
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