Legal aspects of automatism
John Rumbold in Automatism as a Defence in Criminal Law, 2018
The case law suggests that voluntary intoxication requires more than the voluntary consumption of intoxicating substances. In the case of Hardie, the defendant had taken some of his partner’s diazepam tablets on her advice, whose tablets they were. He set fire to the flat in which they lived whilst under the influence of the drug, and was charged with arson, contrary to section 1(2) and (3) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971. This offence requires intention or recklessness, and so is an offence of basic intent. His conviction was quashed on the ground: that the jury should have been directed that if they concluded that by taking the drug a defendant could not appreciate the risks to property and persons from his actions, they should consider whether the taking of the drug was itself reckless.
Introduction
Bertha Alvarez Manninen, Jack Mulder Jr. in Civil Dialogue on Abortion, 2018
It will also become clear that we actually disagree on whether pro-lifers should consider abortion an act of murder. Interestingly, it is Manninen who thinks they should. She alleges that abortion, on pro-life principles, should be thought so grievous as to constitute not just homicide or manslaughter, but first-degree murder. She simply thinks that the pro-life principles that would generate this conclusion are mistaken. Mulder holds the pro-life position but believes that there are reasons to think that nearly all acts of abortion could not qualify as murder. Murder, as most penal codes recognize, requires malicious intent.12 As Manninen discusses at length in her initial chapter, we know enough about many women’s motivations for abortion to believe that the attribution of malicious intent to them is implausible. Mulder simply holds that they would still lack malice even if it turned out they were mistaken about whether their autonomy extended to abortion or about whether the fetus were a person, or some other such belief that is commonly used to justify abortion. Add to this that in our culture there are widespread disagreements about this issue, as well as politicians who shift their positions in sometimes alarming ways to grasp hold of or continue in power.13 These factors (some more than others) significantly impact our ability to assess the culpability of those involved in abortion.
Mapping laboratories and pinpointing intentions
Christine Hauskeller, Arne Manzeschke, Anja Pichl in The Matrix of Stem Cell Research, 2019
In the Tokyo report the term quasi-legal is taken to signify both fair prosecution and precise language. The specific deployment of such convictions in the STAP case is telling of the limitations and inherent violence of the quasi-legal format. The constitutive move for legitimizing the grounds and early results of investigation was indeed a legal term: akui (悪意). Akui was spotted by the first investigatory committee in RIKEN’s audit regulations, and inserted in their discrediting strategy at the Report on Review of Obokata’s Appeal. Note that the specific notion means ‘with malicious intent’ in everyday use, but ‘knowingly’ in the legal sense (Mizuno and Nakamura, 2009, 13 [194]). As courtroom discourse analyst Nakamura and court interpreter Mizuno point out ‘legal terminology in Japan is highly specialized and difficult for lay people to understand’, as is the case for most countries, and Akui is an example of legal jargon triggering courtroom incommensurabilities between lay and legal communication (in translating, interpreting, interrogating) due to the negative charge it carries in lay use (ibid., 13). In their work incommensurability became crucial to address when the institution of the ‘lay judge’ was about to be introduced into civic courts. Consequently, their studies on the discrepancy between lay and expert use are not on how, say, witnesses or audience interpret the judges but on how lay judges participate in delivering justice. The semiotic differences are bound up with the material conditions that allow for legal deliberations to emerge as fair (on the materialities of law, see Pottage, 2012).
Engaging with Cultural Sport Psychology to Explore Systemic Sexual Exploitation in USA Gymnastics: A Call to Commitments
Published in Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 2020
Leslee A. Fisher, Allison Daniel Anders
Following Glaser (2002), Stirling and Kerr (2008) defined emotional abuse as “a relationship between a child and caregiver that is characterized by patterns of nonphysical harmful interactions” (p. 173). Indeed, emotional abuse is an extremely common but underrecognized form of child abuse. However, emotional abuse has received very little research attention due to several factors: (a) the cultural (and sport subcultural) acceptance of psychological aggression, (b) the frequent lack of malicious intent by the perpetrator, and (c) the perceived lack of urgency with respect to intervention (p. 173; see also Brassard & Donovan, 2006). Furthermore, limitations with the identification and definition of emotional abuse have impeded research efforts (Stirling & Kerr, 2008).
If Criminal Intentions Are Nonvoluntary, Mandatory Neurointerventions Might Be Permissible
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2018
Andrea Lavazza
In their stimulating article, Birks and Buyx (2018) argue against resorting to mandatory neurointerventions to diminish the likelihood of some forms of criminal offense. Their argument is based on the notion of mental integrity, which is violated when someone intentionally interferes with the mental states of the offender in a way that bypasses the offender’s autonomous thought and is contrary to the offender’s autonomous desire. The authors also ingeniously deny any “punishment equivalence thesis.” Their general argument is persuasive, but fails to consider an important aspect concerning the mental states connected to the offender's criminal conduct. In fact, the law itself states that in some cases the offender is not responsible for his or her actions because the latter are not the result of an intention the offender was in control of. Today there seems to be evidence that situations in which a criminal offender acts following intentions that are beyond his or her conscious control could be much more frequent than what was previously believed (cf. Alces 2018).
Nano-sunscreens – a double-edged sword in protecting consumers from harm: viewing Australian regulatory policies through the lenses of the European Union
Published in Critical Reviews in Toxicology, 2019
S. M. Solaiman, Jennifer Algie, Shahnaz Bakand, Ronald Sluyter, Vitor Sencadas, Michael Lerch, Xu-Feng Huang, Konstantin Konstantinov, Philip J. Barker
Having regard to the proportionate relation between exposure to products and extent of harm, controlling such exposure to harmful substances is generally a legal obligation of any entity anywhere, its individual enforcement practice regardless. Hence controlling such exposures should be taken seriously, and a failure in doing so may make companies indulged in the introduction of harmful products into the stream of commerce (e.g., suppliers, distributors, manufacturers, and retailers; Krow 2014). These products may cause harm to others for which the business may have to face strict liability, where good business intention will be irrelevant as a defense (Krow 2014). Although the exposure should be initially minimized from the manufacturer’s workplace to protect workers, potential harm to consumers and other post-production handlers should be given equal emphasis. So this relates to the protection of sunscreens users as well. Product stewardship does help strengthen self-regulation and business sustainability.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Euthanasia
- Mental State
- Mens Rea
- Unintended Consequences
- Velleity