This book provides a leading point of reference in the field of partial defences to murder and with respect to the mental condition defences of loss of control and diminished responsibility in general. The work includes contributions from leading specialists from different jurisdictions and analyses concerns such as domestic violence, revenge and mixed motive killings and mistaken beliefs. It also presents a comparative and international view to provide a wider background of how alternative systems treat issues of human frailty

Contents: Preface; Introduction, Alan Reed and Michael Bohlander; The new diminished responsibility plea: more than mere modernisation?, Ronnie Mackay; The modern partial defence of diminished responsibility, Rudi Fortson; Loss of self-control under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009: oh no!, Barry Mitchell; The model of tolerance and self-restraint, Richard Taylor; The serious wrong of domestic abuse and the loss of control defence, Jonathan Herring; Loss of self-control: when his anger is worth more than her fear, Susan S.M. Edwards; Feminism, 'typical' women, and losing control, Neil Cobb and Anna Gausden; Sexual infidelity killings: contemporary standardisations and comparative stereotypes, Alan Reed and Nicola Wake; Killing in response : to 'circumstances of an extremely grave character': improving the law on homicide, Jesse Elvin; The view from Ireland, John E. Stannard; Partial defences to murder in Scotland: an unlikely tranquillity, James Chalmers; Anglo-American perspectives on partial defences: something old, something borrowed, and something new, Alan Reed and Nicola Wake; Provoking a range of responses: the provocation defence in British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, Claire de Than; A comparative analysis of English and French defences to demonstrate the limitations of the concept of loss of control, Catherine Elliott; When the bough breaks - defences and sentencing options available in battered women and similar scenarios under German criminal law, Michael Bohlander; Partial defences to murder in New Zealand, Warren Brookbanks; Abnormal mental state mitigations or murder: the US perspective, Paul H. Robinson; The conflation of provocation and justification: an analysis of partial defences to murder in Islamic law, Mohammed M. Hedayati-Kakhki; Provocation and diminished responsibility in Dutch homicide law, Hein D. Wolswijk; Partial defences due to loss of control and diminished responsibility under Spanish criminal law, Manuel Cancio Me