jam buddies 🎶

I might be wrong 🤔 but I've seen a few people talk about mental health issues and how people get completely free from their crimes because of them... I don't personally agree or prefer not to involucrate myself with mental health having such a big influence on these discussions about the LOV charges, because... First, I know nothing about that, and second, doesn't that depends of what you were experiencing and your country? Not that I don't think it shouldn't be taken into account because that wouldn't be true, but it isn't an instant fix to your crimes, imo. From what I know... it happens when the person who commit that crime wasn't in the best place mentally, like if you had a schizophrenic attack or you had a severe panic attack at the moment. But people like Toga, Spinner, Shigaraki... they would probably be charged either way, I think? Along with Dabi and Compress. Yeah, sure, right now Dabi isn't in the best place and Shigaraki was manipulated, but what about past crimes? Because... Those were actual, personal decisions that were technically planned. The only thing is that their decisions came from a warped version of the world and I don't think that counts as much. It is my belief that usually, people that commit these crimes aren't in the best place, mentally.

I mean, in therapy, when a client confess to murder, the psychologist (depending of the country) usually can't say this kind of information, but if you are someone who is in danger, you have a reason to believe that your client is planning something or your client is probably going to hurt themselves, the first one doesn't really matter and you should call the police. And during Law, I think it also doesn't necessarily eliminate your responsabilities, it only changes the way you are prosecuted-- Like, instead of going to jail, they sent you to a hospital. Something quite similar? Doesn't it depends heavily of those factors?

In Argentina, just like almost every other country from America, I think the Law is or used to be terrible about this and you can walk free out of a lot of crimes, but jus because these things happens it doesn't means that it should 👀 I'm asking since you are a Law student dkdkjd my guess is that there must be a general idea of how the Law works in that area or a common response, even if every country applies it differently-- but I don't really know

Hmmm, in a probable attempt of putting my foot in my mouth and prove I have clue what I’m talking about when it comes to law (...I may be a law student but I never said I was a good one), I always find the discussion of mental health defences for the league to be interesting because while we in the UK have them, it’s not exactly as clear cut as one might think.

Who’s ready for a shoddy UK (EDIT: It’s actually only England and Wales these defences apply to and being a good student I completely forgot this :D) Criminal Law lesson!! (Please note that these defences are for the UK and UK alone and so would probably not apply in any other country, I just think the knowledge might give people a clearer look at how the law handles mental health when it comes to murder).

As you’re probably aware or can guess, murder is the most (or one of the most? I really need to go back over my criminal law stuff T-T) serious charge in criminal law. To be charged with murder in the UK you must have both high actus and mens rea (want to commit the act and having attempted to done so). However, in some cases, you can apply partial defences to the act of murder that mitigate the sentance.

There are two know partial defences in the UK:

- Diminished Responsibility

- Loss of Control

Loss of Control despite what it may sound like doesn’t just include mental health, in fact is has a rather objective element that a reasonable person would have done the same thing in the same circumstances. This usually covers qualifying triggers or fear of violence.

Diminished Responsibility as you can tell by it’s name covers mental health. This defense is entirely subjective as it assumes that the person with the defence has a mental condition that explains why they did what they did. As such, it doesn’t need to the same requirements that Loss of Control needs to be met. In recent years, the scope of Diminished responsibility has been tightened with new laws requesting that their needs to be medical evidence of the mental illness for this defence to be used.

Now... To get to the point. In the case of the League, the defence used for them would be diminished responsibility (because loss of control would probably be shot down in a matter of minutes due to the fact that most of their plans are premeditated) however the issue sadly would be trying to prove to the Judge and Jury that the League have official medical diagnosis that would apply in order to use this defence.

Really, it sounds horrible when you think about it because these defences don’t really seem to cover enough or extreme circumstances (like say those raised in cults or the way Shigaraki was raised?).

My point being that even though the League’s circumstances would surely be considering, because of the extremity of their actions, I actually don’t think any of the applicable murder defences would do them any good.

I think one of the biggest debates brought up when it comes to criminal law is the subjective meaning of “reasonable person”, especially because when murder usually happens, people who commit those murders usually aren’t in the best places mentally to begin with. What’s the cut off? How can we decided that? These are all argument brought up when discussing the issues of our current laws and it’s certainly interesting to think about.

The League’s cases are really interesting because they seem to fall into that grey area of law that doesn’t really have much coverage because to try and cover it could cause floodgates to open that would cause more issues for the courts in the long run.

Truthfully, I don’t think the League have the best bet when it comes to murder defences though there might be certain case law out there that I can’t remember that could help them (at least in the UK justice system.)

Of course, this is just for the UK. BNHA takes place in Japan and their murder defences are probably a lot different.