LEGAL DEFENSES THAT CAN BE USED FOR AN ATTEMPTED MURDER CASE1

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome everyone to Inside the Badge. We delve deep into
understanding criminal law. So let's get started. Have you ever
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(01:08):
at the insanity defense today, at least a little bit
of it. The insanity defense is a legal concept that
excuses criminal conduct if, at the time of the offense,
the defendant lacked the capacity to understand the nature and
quality of the act, or distinguish right from wrong due
to a severe mental illness or defect. This is coming
from people versus Skinners how they defined it in that case.

(01:31):
In California, the insanity defense is governed by the mcnoten rule,
which states that a defendant is not guilty by reason
of insanity if at the time of the offense they
do not understand the nature in quality of the act
or did not understand that the act was wrong. This
is also coming from people versus Skinner. Now that you
have other defenses that you can use instead of the

(01:52):
insanity defense that might be able to protect somebody from
a murder case, you can have diminished capacity, which is
kind of like a cousin of the insanity defense in
a sense. The diminished capacity defense is a legal concept
that allows a defendant to argue that their mental state
at the time of the offense was such that they
could not form the specific intent required for the crime charged.

(02:13):
This is coming out of people versus Conley. In California,
the diminished capacity defense can be used to reduce a
charge from attempted murder to a lesser offense, such as assaults.
This can vary by state. In California, if the defendant
to condemonstrate that their mental state at the time of
the offense was impaired, then they can use the diminished
capacity defense. For instance, if you have somebody who has

(02:38):
depression and the alleged replacement of their antidepressants was with
ambient for instance, the sleeping the medication for helping with insomnia,
it may be relevant to a diminished capacity defense. If
the person of the perpetrator can demonstrate that his mental
state at the time of the offense was impaired due
to his depression and the effects of the ambient, he

(02:59):
may be able to successfully argue that he did not
have the specific intent required for for attempted murder. In
one similar case, you can also look at involuntary intoxication
in the case of people versus Whitfield. The involuntary intoxication
defense is a legal concept that allows a defendant to
argue that they were voluntarily or involuntarily intoxicated at the

(03:22):
time of the offense, and that this intoxication prevented them
from forming the requisite mental state for the crime charged.
In California, the involuntary intoxication defense can be used to
negate the mental state required for the crime charged, and
in the case that we mentioned earlier, if the person
can demonstrate that there was an involuntarily. If they were

(03:44):
involuntarily intoxicated due to the alleged replacement of their depressants
with antidepressants with ambient they may be able to successfully
argue as well that they did not have the requisite
mental state for attempted murder. So you'd have a few
options there in defense of your client. So the client
presents several potential legal defenses. Again, you can present the

(04:04):
insanity defense, which is rarely one, the diminished capacity involuntary intoxication,
and lastly self defense, which we're going to explore later
in another case State versus Norman that we'll expand more
deeply into. That's it for now.