Citation

Hallett N. Med. Sci. Law 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, British Academy of Forensic Sciences, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0025802419872844

PMID

31483744

Abstract

Following the Court of Appeal case of R v Edwards in England and Wales, there has been increasing pressure for expert psychiatric witnesses to comment explicitly on how a defendant’s mental disorder affects their culpability. Culpability is the degree to which a person can be held morally or legally responsible for their conduct, but defining culpability has proved difficult. Mental disorder does not translate easily into degrees of legal culpability. Although psychiatric evidence will often be central to such cases, the determination of culpability is a matter for the court, and experts should not comment on it explicitly. Nevertheless, certain areas of psychiatry may have a bearing on culpability, and ways in which experts may comment on these are suggested. Given the pressure on judges to determine culpability, experts need to be honest about the limits of medical science to answer legal questions and the professional necessity to remain within their area of expertise.


Keywords Expert witness, culpability, forensic psychiatry

Language: en

Keywords

Expert witness; culpability; forensic psychiatry