A paper which looks in detail at a case study relating to criminal liability, with particular reference to provocation and the concept of psychological injury. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: JL5_JLpsycase.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
liability in the case study. For example, we need to establish whether or not Susan and Diana could be said to have contributed to their injuries themselves. (It should also
be noted that psychological injury is, in any event, often difficult to assess.) It is possible that there was some element of provocation involved in the incidents which took place:
however, here we have to consider the level of response from those concerned. For instance, whether or not Susan had a boyfriend at the disco,
saying that she had is not sufficient to justify the violent response which she gets from Danny, even granted that he is apparently annoyed at being told a lie. In
addition, it would not be reasonable to assert that Susan should have foreseen the kind of consequences which might result from telling such a lie: the average person would not
expect such a disproportionate response to what is, basically, nothing more than a polite excuse for rejecting someones unwelcome advances. Certainly, the fact that the girls leave the disco and
go to the restaurant together, with no "boyfriend" to be seen, would make it clear to Danny that Susans comment was untruthful, but this can still hardly be regarded as
a level of provocation which would warrant a threatening and violent response. It would appear from the description in the case study that Danny has
physically attacked Susan in some way by the time Diana returns, since "hearing a scuffle" is mentioned - it is not clear, however, whether Susan or Danny has initiated this
"scuffle". Given Dannys later actions, though, it would appear that he is considerably stronger and more powerful than the girl, which would indicate that even if she had struck first,