THE NEUROLOGY OF CRIMINAL DEFENCE OF INSANITY

Abstract

In criminal jurisprudence, culpability of a defendant is determined strictly by the establishment of the physical and mental elements of the offence. Albeit, in certain rare circumstances both the guilty act, to wit, the actus reus and the guilty mind, to wit, the mens rea could be established and proved as required by law, yet the defendant might not be criminally culpable. One of such very rare occurrences is when the statutory defence of insanity is raised. Whenever it is properly raised and successfully defended, the defendant is completely exculpated from any modicum of criminal culpability no matter how grave and sever the offence may be. Therefore, this academic investigation is geared towards the critical examination of the root, the raison d’etre of why the criminal defence of insanity is so effective in criminal jurisprudence. This is knitted upon the specific objective of unveiling whether the efficacious defence is neurologically oriented. The adopted methodology is doctrinal using primary and secondary sources of information as means of data collection and tools for analysis of chosen indices. The work found and concluded that the root of raising the defence is endogenous due to imbalance in the secretion and circulation of biochemical substances in the brain circuitry systems resulting to damages of some vital parts of the brain. Hence, the defence is absolutely rooted on neurological stimulation as it is generated from the neural correlates of the brain circuitry systems.