Golds v R

Facts

The defendant killed his partner and was charged with murder. He relied on diminished responsibility, with medical evidence that he suffered from a recognised medical condition. The live dispute was whether any resulting impairment of his abilities was substantial.

History

The defendant was convicted of murder after the trial judge gave the jury a direction on the meaning of substantial. The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) dismissed his appeal and the point of law was taken to the Supreme Court.

Issue

What is the meaning of substantial in the requirement that the abnormality of mental functioning substantially impaired the ability of the defendant to do one of the things listed in the statute, and whether and how the judge should explain the word to the jury.

Held

Appeal dismissed and the conviction for murder stood.

Ratio

• Substantial is an ordinary English word that Parliament chose to leave to the jury; it does not mean total impairment, and it excludes impairment that is merely trivial or minimal.
• Whether the impairment is substantial is a question of fact for the jury, which is not bound by the opinions of medical experts on that question.
• In the ordinary case the judge need not and should not seek to define the word further; it is only where the jury needs help that an explanation of its ordinary meaning is appropriate.

The judgments

Key reasoning

• Parliament reformed the defence in 2009 to require an abnormality of mental functioning arising from a recognised medical condition, and kept the word substantial from the earlier version, so the court looked to its ordinary meaning in that statutory context.
• The jury must decide whether the impairment mattered enough to reduce the responsibility of the defendant, which is a moral question, not a purely medical one.
• A rigid formula would risk displacing the jury judgment and create the very difficulty the court wished to avoid.

Where it fits in the module

Homicide is built around the fair labelling of killings and the partial defences that reduce murder to manslaughter. Golds goes to the heart of how the defence of diminished responsibility balances medical evidence and moral judgment, because the law requires a medical condition but leaves the final assessment of degree to the jury.

Criticisms

• Leaving an elastic word undefined invites inconsistent verdicts, since different juries may treat similar impairment as substantial or not, which sits uneasily with the aim of certainty in a murder case carrying a mandatory sentence.
• The refusal to define substantial more precisely means the work of the defence is done by a word the jury may not understand, while medical experts cannot assist on the very point that matters most.
• Emphasising that the question is for the jury sits awkwardly with the reality that the defence depends on psychiatric diagnosis, and invites the objection that jurors are asked to decide a medical question without any criteria.