News and current affairs

March 25, 2017 19:54

The owner of a breakfast restaurant in Keelung, surnamed Liu, stabbed his wife to death with a bread knife, and his 23-year-old daughter was also affected. After the attack, Mr. Liu committed suicide with a knife. After being rescued by the hospital, none of the three people's lives were in danger. According to preliminary police investigation, there was no dispute between Mr. Liu and his spouse beforehand, and he may have lost control of his emotions due to investment failure or work pressure.

Full news content:

http://www.appledaily.com.tw/realtimenews/article/new/20170325/1084157/

Although the facts of this news did not result in the death of the victim in the end, life in modern society is under great pressure, and there are many people with mental illness or emotional control problems. In specific criminal cases, the perpetrators also claim to seek compensation due to mental disorders or mental defects. No penalty or reduced sentence. How does the recent court practice judge and operate in actual cases?

Note: "The provisions regarding the criminal liability capacity of an act refer to the actor's ability to recognize that the act is illegal due to mental disorder or other physiological reasons of mental defect "at the time of the act" (theoretically known as "identification ability") or The psychological consequences of being unable, deficient or significantly reduced due to the ability to act based on identification (theoretically known as "control ability"). Among them, the physiological cause element of "mental disorder or other mental defect" involves the specialized knowledge of the medical psychiatric department. It is not diagnosed and identified by personnel or institutions specializing in mental illness medical research. Knowledge and experience or the need to entrust a professional medical institution to conduct an appraisal; if the appraisal results show that the perpetrator did have a mental disorder or other mental defect at the time of his behavior, whether these physiological factors led to his ability to recognize illegal acts or to control illegal acts. ability, resulting in the psychological consequences of being unable, deficient or significantly reduced, that is, whether there is a causal relationship between the two, and whether criminal liability can be prevented or reduced, should be judged and evaluated by the court based on its authority. ”, “As stipulated in Article 19 of the Criminal Law, criminal liability capacity refers to the perpetrator’s ability to understand legal norms and recognize that the behavior is illegal at the time of the crime, and the ability to control the behavior based on this recognition. Whether the perpetrator has sufficient ability to influence consciousness Physiological reasons such as mental disorders or other psychological defects in ability and control, because the matter involves the medical profession, should be subject to the identification of medical experts. However, whether the existence of these physiological reasons leads to the perpetrator's lack of consciousness and control ability or The psychological consequences of significant reduction are determined by the state at the time of the crime, so the court should make a judgment based on the results of the investigation of evidence." In practice, in our country, regarding the perpetrator's ability to be criminally responsible for relevant acts, whether Article 19 of the Criminal Law should be applied to grant non-punishment or a reduced sentence, medical expert appraisal is often used to determine whether the perpetrator indeed has a mental disorder or other psychological defects and other physiological factors, but whether this is The consequences of the perpetrator's lack of consciousness and ability to control, as well as the causal relationship between them, are still subject to investigation and judgment by the court based on the circumstances of the specific case and relevant evidence. For reference, please refer to the Supreme Court's 1996 Taiwanese Criminal Judgment No. 5297, 1996 Taiwanese Criminal Judgment No. 5544, and 1996 Taiwanese Criminal Judgment No. 6368.

Among the recent high-profile homicide cases, there have been cases where people have argued for obstruction or reduction of criminal responsibility on the grounds of mental disorder or mental defect, including the 103 Taipei MRT random murder case of Zheng Jie and the 104 Beitou girl's throat-cutting case. Cases such as the Gong Chongan case and the Neihu random murder case, namely the Wang Jingyu case. In Zheng Jie's case, although the psychiatric evaluation report stated that his Graves' disease might lead to "depressive illness," the court held that it would not affect his mental state. Before the incident, at the time of the incident, and shortly after the incident, Zheng Jie’s speech, behavior, and responses were all normal. His choices and reasons for the crime process, details of the murder, and other actions were all consistent with the norm. Rational choice; the ability to recognize, feel, react to external things, and coordinate body movements, etc., are not lower than those of ordinary normal people. Therefore, the application of Article 19 of the Criminal Law to avoid punishment or reduce the sentence is denied. Secondly, the first-instance judgment of Yu Gong Chongan's case was evaluated by Taipei Rongzong. Although it was found that Gong Chongan suffered from schizophrenia, it did not induce the murder. He prepared the murder tools before committing the crime, found the murder target, and had detailed and clear memories of the details of the murder process. , it is believed that there was considerable calculation in the process of committing the crime; both before committing the crime and during the crime, his ability to recognize, react, think and physically coordinate external things was not lower than that of ordinary people. Therefore, there is no Article 2 of the Criminal Law. Article 19 Due to mental disorder or mental defect, the person is unable to recognize that his behavior is illegal or lacks the ability to act in accordance with his recognition, or the aforementioned ability is significantly reduced, so there are circumstances in which he will not be punished or his sentence will be reduced. The case of Wang Jingyu is currently being tried by the Shilin District Court in Taiwan. However, according to the prosecution press release of the Prosecutor's Office of the Shilin District Court in Taiwan, the case was evaluated by the Psychiatric Department of Taipei Veterans General Hospital and Wang Jingyu was identified as the murderer. As stipulated in Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 19 of the Criminal Law, "due to mental disorder or other mental defects, the person is unable to recognize that his behavior is illegal or lacks the ability to act based on his recognition", or "due to the reasons in the preceding paragraph, his recognition is "The behavior is illegal or the person's ability to act based on his recognition is significantly reduced", the defendant Wang Jingyu was found guilty of exposing the murderer, and public prosecution was initiated.

In the above-mentioned murder cases, regardless of whether the judgment of the court or the prosecutor's office of the district court can be checked, the application of Article 19 of the Criminal Law must first be judged by experts to determine whether the perpetrator has mental disorder or other psychological defects and other physiological factors. Secondly, the court will comprehensively judge the person's consciousness and control ability based on the specific case circumstances, such as the perpetrator's judgment in preparing the weapon and finding the target before the act; the means and details of the act; and the memory content, state and subjective cognition after the act. Whether it is different from ordinary people, and confirm whether it is caused by physiological reasons. If the non-perpetrator claims that he is mentally ill, the court will always grant no penalty or reduce the sentence.