Analysis of Criminal Responsibility in Perpetrators with Mental Disorder / 대한법의학회지

ABSTRACT

Crimes committed by the mentally ill may give rise to critical conflicts on whether the criminals should receive punishment or treatment. Therefore, our criminal code has a legal provision for mental handicap and criminal responsibility, which can reduce or exempt the criminal penalty. This process requires a psychiatric evaluation of the defendants as well as normative decisions by judges. The psychiatric evaluation and diagnosis precede the court judgement, and are used by the court to judge the mental handicap of the defendant at the time of the crime. However, judgments on the criminal responsibility of a defendant with mental disorder are very complex and challenging because of time gaps and difficulties faced in the evaluation of human mental ability. We analyzed court rulings in 19 cases where the defendants claimed to be mentally handicapped. The analysis results showed that the mental handicap was recognized in nine cases, rejected in four cases, and not mentioned by the court in six cases. Further, psychiatric evaluation was not performed in three cases. Apart from the result of the evaluation, the judges seem to consider other factors for sentencing, like recidivism risk, premeditation of crimes, and their brutality. These results suggest that the rationale and procedure of court rulings involving mentally handicapped persons may be debatable. We argue that psychiatric evaluations should be made indispensable in judicial procedures for cases involving mentally handicapped persons, and judges should clearly indicate their decision on mental handicap or criminal responsibility in the sentencing.