THE NEUROLOGY OF CRIMINAL DEFENCE OF INSANITY

Abstract

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