“Diminished responsibility” and enforcing the death penalty (France, 19th-20th centuries)
"Responsabilité atténuée" et application de la peine de mort (France, XIXe-XXe siècles)
“Azaltılmış Sorumluluk” ve Ölüm Cezasının Uygulanması (Fransa, 19.-20. Yüzyıllar)
Résumé
The Napoleonic Penal Code of 1810, incorporating provisions inherited from ancient Roman law, provided that legal responsibility was abolished in cases of insanity (art. 64) and for some minors under the age of discretion. The law was fully and severely enforced in all other cases, but from 1832, the notion of “diminished responsibility” began to rise with the introduction of the principle of “extenuating circumstances”. This concept took into account the new ideas coming from the fields of psychiatry and criminology, and played an important part in the decrease in the use of the death penalty during the 19th century. Psycho-social examination of criminals and research into their mental retardations or psychic abnormalities were made compulsory by a 1905 ministerial circular. The diagnosis from this examination could be enough to establish an extenuating circumstance and to avoid the use of the guillotine. However, these assessments could be discussed in court, and they did not always prevent a death sentence. The recurrent issue of the “entire penal responsibility” of offenders remained a stak in death penalty cases, until the abolition of 1981.