H. M. Advocate v Braithwaite
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 01 December 1944 |
| Date | 01 December 1944 |
| Docket Number | No. 10. |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
HIGH COURT.
Lord Justice-Clerk.
Crime—Murder—Culpable homicide—Insanity—Mental unsoundness not amounting to insanity—Onus of proof.
At the trial of a panel, who had stabbed his wife to death, on the charge of murder the Lord Justice-Clerk directed the jury (1) that, if the panel; although not insane, was suffering from some infirmity or aberration of mind or impairment of intellect to such an extent as not to be fully accountable for his actions—something amounting or approaching to partial insanity and based on mental weakness or aberration—the crime was reduced from murder to culpable homicide: (2) that the onus was on the panel to make good the defence of partial irresponsibility, and that he must show that the balance of probability on the evidence was in favour of the view that his accountability and responsibility were below normal. It was not for the Crown, having established that the panel had caused the death, to go further and show that he was fully responsible for what he had done.
Stanley Braithwaite was charged on an indictment at the instance of His Majesty's Advocate which set forth "that you did, on 15th September 1944, in the dwelling-house at 61 Sherwood Cottages, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, assault Agnes Murdoch or Braithwaite, your wife, residing with you there, and did stab her repeatedly on the body, arms and hands with a knife or other sharp instrument, whereby she was so severely injured that she died on 16th September 1944 in the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, and you did murder her."
The accused was tried in the High Court at Edinburgh on 30th November and 1st December 1944 before the Lord Justice-Clerk and a jury.
From the evidence it appeared that the accused, after a quarrel with his wife, drew a knife from the pocket of a suit of dungarees he was wearing, and inflicted on his wife a number of wounds, two if not three of which were each sufficient to cause her death.
Counsel for the accused argued that he was not, owing to his mental condition, fully responsible for his actions and that the crime which he had committed was accordingly not murder but culpable homicide.
In the course of his charge the Lord Justice-Clerk (Cooper) gave the following directions to the jury:—
LORD JUSTICE-CLERK .—[After dealing with the case on the merits]—It has been urged on behalf of the accused as a defence that he was not fully responsible or accountable for what he is said to have done that...
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