Topic summary
Partial defense
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Criminal defenses.
A partial defense is a defense that does not completely absolve the defendant of guilt. A claim of self-defense, for example, may be a complete defense to a charge of murder, leading to an acquittal; or it may be a partial defense, which leads to conviction to a lesser verdict, such as manslaughter. In the United Kingdom, successfully pleading a partial defense for murder may reduce the conviction to voluntary manslaughter. There are three types of partial defense to the charge of murder - loss of control (which replaced "provocation" in 2010), diminished responsibility, and suicide pact.