THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF THE STATUTORY CRIMINAL DEFENCE OF IMMATURE AGE

Abstract

It is common knowledge that whenever a defendant who is standing criminal trial is found guilty of an offence, his constitutionally guaranteed liberty is severely curtailed or his life abruptly taken by the State. Due to its harshness and seemingly draconian principles associated with criminal jurisprudence, certain special mitigating circumstances are provided by statutes to serve as shields. One of such unique circumstances is the statutory criminal defence of immature age. Whenever it is successfully raised and defended it amounts to a solemn justification for the specific offence. The above explanation prominently results to either an outright exculpation from criminal liability or the punishment drastically reduced to the barest minimum. It is therefore, the intendment of this scholarly investigation to critically examine the philosophical root, the raison d’etre of including the defence of immature age as a statutory criminal defence. This is specifically aimed at ascertaining whether the defence of immature age as provided by law is neurologically oriented. In other words, the work is beamed to answer the question why the defence of immature age in criminal jurisprudence? The methodological approach adopted to analyse the selected indices is doctrinal, using primary and secondary sources of information as styles of data collection.