If you did something truly awful in a "moment of madness"....

[TheDreadedFoosa]

wouldnt you still want to be punished?
I'm thinking particularly of the Lianne Smith case but have often thought the same about other cases.
If you killed your children and it really was as a result of feeling desperate, would you claim something like diminshed responsibility?
I wouldnt. Well, im never going to commit such a crime - i know that- but if i did, i would know that my life effectively ended at that point and would have absolutely no motivation to try and minimise my punishment. I wouldnt care what happened to me. What would be the point?
Maybe its a legal thing? Does the defendant get to decide on the plea (in this case not guilty on the grounds of diminished responsibility) beyond guilty/not guilty?

If I killed my children I wouldn't give a damn what happened to me. I'd be beyond reason. I'd probably kill myself anyway.

But I think, thinking like that takes some level of sanity, which wouldn't be present if I had killed my DC.

None of us know what's round the corner or how we would react.

It's a matter of justice. It would be unjust to condemn a person to a lifetime in prison if they committed an offence when they were suffering some serious psychiatric crisis. Maybe they don't care what happens to them next but a civilised society should care.

Thats an interesting point, Cogito.
Its why i wondered about about the defendant choosing to enter a not guilty plea, i would assume its their choice.
Once such a plea is entered then yes, it is correct that that they are judged with the mitigation in mind BUT my point is about the choice to enter that plea to begin with. I just wouldnt, i know i wouldnt.

I agree with cogito, a civilised society needs to care and take note of these distinctions.

The thing about diminished responsibility is that it is diminished responsibility - perhaps a moment when a normally sane and reasonable person simply isn't.

In a sense the "I" who normally "knows" and "believes" this and that, and acts in this and that reasonable and responsible way is, for some reason, and in some sense, just not there.

The "you" that stands in judgment no, "knowing" this and that about yourself, would not be the "you" that acts in a manner that comes under the category of diminished responsibility. In a sense the "knowing", rational you is the last person in the world who has the right to pass judgment on the "you" that might have acted in a (perhaps momentarily) completely irrational way, and committed some act coming under the rubric of diminished responsibility.

If my capacity was diminished then yes, I would probably agree to plead that. But honestly I'm sure I'd be plotting suicide..... Not that I think that that is the answer, but I'm sure I would be.

Hard to tell. A friend of mine tried to set fire to his house during an acute schizophrenia crisis. We met him after the incident and it didn't seem to be anything to do with him iyswim; he was so obviously the same kind, gentle person he always had been. He had no recollection of what had happened. It's what animula said: the I and you weren't the same person.

He did kill himself later though

Perhaps that was what he needed to do for his own sake- but I would have found it abhorrent if he had been punished in any way.

My ex-SIL who works in dementia care sometimes gets punched by the patients. It's hardly their fault in any meaningful sense of the word.