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This Article calls for the creation of a generic partial excuse for diminished rationality from mental disability. Currently, most jurisdictions recognize only one partial excuse: the common law heat-of-passion defense. Empirical research demonstrates that populations with delusions experience similar impairments to decision-making capacities as people confronted with sudden, objectively adequate provocation. Yet, current law affords significant mitigation only to the latter group, which only applies in murder cases. Adoption of the Model Penal Code's "extreme mental or emotional disturbance" (EMED) defense could extend mitigation to other forms of diminished responsibility. However, examination of jurisdictions' adoption and utilization of the EMED defense shows that, of the few states that have adopted it, most have rejected its diminished responsibility potential. Instead, most retain key features of heat of passion such as requiring an external provoking event, rendering the defense inapplicable to many delusion-driven crimes. A better solution would be to create a generic partial excuse for diminished rationality from mental disability. Over the decades, several prominent scholars have offered proposals for generic partial excuses for partial responsibility, but, as of yet, none has inspired legislative action. This Article's proposal differs from prior proposals in four key respects. First, it limits its purview to rationality impairments from mental disabilities, a traditionally recognized form of diminished blameworthiness. Second, to be workable and attractive to states, this proposal recommends that states draw definitions of partial responsibility from existing statutory frameworks, namely existing insanity or Guilty But Mentally Ill (GBMI) standards. Such an understanding of partial responsibility should carry greater local legitimacy, and the popularity of GBMI verdicts with legislatures and juries may mean that extending those statutes into the realm of partial responsibility would be more palatable to state legislatures than wholly new language. Third, in light of the realities of mental disorder and its lived experience, our proposal does not advocate for a lesser degree of mitigation for defendants who contributed to their irrationality through failure to comply with medical directives. Fourth, our proposal draws from GBMI statutes and partial responsibility standards outside the United States to suggest sentencing, treatment, and post-sentence options to accompany a partial responsibility verdict and respond to any possible threat to public safety. This Article examines the first two distinctive components of the partial excuse; the third and fourth aspects of the proposal will be developed in a future work.

The article emphasizes the problem of diminished responsibility in Georgian criminal law. The research pays attention to the historicalaspect of diminished responsibility and problem of free will in criminal behavior of a person with diminished responsibility.The article provides information about the list and characteristics of psychical anomalies and other circumstances that cause diminishedresponsibility. The research discusses the issue of relationship between the guilt and diminished responsibility. Accordingly, in author'sopinion, diminished responsibility includes all circumstances (except mental illness) that mitigate one's guilt at the time of committingcrime, in spite of its causing grounds.At the same time, the article gives a new definition of diminished responsibility that differs from legislative definition.

The article emphasizes the problem of diminished responsibility in Georgian criminal law. The research pays attention to the historicalaspect of diminished responsibility and problem of free will in criminal behavior of a person with diminished responsibility.The article provides information about the list and characteristics of psychical anomalies and other circumstances that cause diminishedresponsibility. The research discusses the issue of relationship between the guilt and diminished responsibility. Accordingly, in author'sopinion, diminished responsibility includes all circumstances (except mental illness) that mitigate one's guilt at the time of committingcrime, in spite of its causing grounds.At the same time, the article gives a new definition of diminished responsibility that differs from legislative definition.

Subjects read case reports of an accident, in which the severity of consequences was varied, and where the protagonist was described as "normal" or as exhibiting "symptoms" of alcohol abuse, paranoid delusions, acute anxiety. Although greater mental illness was perceived in the alcoholism and paranoid cases, greater responsibility was also attributed to the alcoholic, and more severe penalties were recommended in both cases. Greater responsibility was attributed when the consequences were severe in the normal case only. The implications were discussed for the concept of self-protective attributions and for the notion of mental illness as denoting diminished capacity for responsibility.

The essays in this volume address questions about responsibility that arise in moral philosophy and legal theory. Some analyse different theories of causality, asking which theory offers the best account of human agency and the most satisfactory resolution of troubling controversies about free will and determinism. Some essays look at responsibility in the legal realm, seeking to determine how the law should assign liability for negligence, or whether the courts should allow defendants to offer excuses for their wrongdoing or to claim some form of 'diminished responsibility'. Other essays explore libertarian views about political freedom and accountability, asking whether libertarian positions on consent, contract law, and responsibility are consistent, or whether restitution is superior to retribution or deterrence as a basis for a theory of corrective justice. Still others examine the notion of partial or divided responsibility, or the relationship between responsibility and the emotions