CRIMINAL LAW SUPERVISION 5: DEFENCES

READING
Andrew Ashworth, Principles of Criminal Law (Oxford: OUP, 5th ed., 2006)
pp.98-105, 135 149, 151-154 203-28 or
Michael Allen, Textbook on Criminal Law (Oxford; OUP, 9th ed., 2007)
and121-44, 154-67 and Chapter 6
CMV Clarkson, HM Keating and SR Cunningham, Clarkson and Keating
Criminal Law (London: Thomson, 6th ed. 2007) pp. 299 322, 325 370, 409
442.
FURTHER READING

(THIS IS NOT REQUIRED FOR THE SUPERVISION, ALTHOUGH IT IS

USEFUL TO DEEPEN YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE COURSE)

R.D. Mackay and B.J. Mitchell Sleepwalking, automatism and insanity

[2006] Crim LR 901.
R.D. Mackay & C.A. Gearty On being insane in Jersey: Part 1 - The case of
Attorney General v. Jason Prior [2001] Crim LR 560.
C.M.V. Clarkson Necessary action: a new defence [2004] Crim LR 81.
S. Gough Surviving without Majewski? [2000] Crim LR 719.
QUESTIONS
1. Does the law of self-defence provide for an appropriate balance between
the rights of the person using defence and the person he is defending
against?
2. Given the handful of cases annually in which insanity is raised as a
defence, one might be forgiven for thinking that it is not worth a great deal
of discussion. This would be a serious error. [T]he recognition of an
insanity defence is a mark of the maturity and humanity of the criminal
law. A. Ashworth Reforming the insanity defence [2003] Crim LR 139.
How mature and humane is our insanity defence?
3 Discuss the suggestion that if duress by threats, duress of circumstances
and self-defence can be described as categories of necessity (per Robert
Walker LJ in Re A (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Operation) [2001] Fam 147,
253), and in the light of the different approaches to the criminal law issues
in that case developed in the three judgments in the Court of Appeal, it

would be perverse to maintain the present distinctions which in some

significant respects apply different requirements for self-defence, duress
and necessity.
4. If the essential facts of Dudley and Stephens came before the courts for
the first time today what would and should be the decision?
5. Do we need specific rules on intoxication?