The Queen v Whitworth

This matter concerns an application by the Crown for special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia against a judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal of Queensland. The respondent had been convicted of murder by the Queensland Supreme Court, but that conviction was set aside by the Court of Criminal Appeal, which ordered a new trial. The respondent had admitted to killing his stepson by strangulation but had raised two defences at trial: a lack of the requisite intent for murder and diminished responsibility under section 304A of the *Criminal Code*. The jury had rejected both defences.

The legal issue before the High Court was whether the Court of Criminal Appeal had erred in its interpretation of section 304A of the *Criminal Code*. This section provides a defence to murder if the accused, at the time of the unlawful killing, was suffering from an abnormality of mind that substantially impaired their capacity to understand what they were doing, control their actions, or know that they ought not to do the act causing death. The Crown submitted that the Court of Criminal Appeal had adopted an erroneous interpretation of this section.

The Crown argued that section 304A requires the defence to prove three elements: first, an abnormality of mind arising from one of the specified causes; second, that this abnormality impaired one of the three capacities mentioned in the section; and third, that this impairment was substantial. The Crown relied on decisions such as *Jones* (1986) 22 A Crim R 42, a New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal decision, which they contended supported this interpretation. The Court of Criminal Appeal had found that the jury had been misdirected on section 304A, leading to their decision to order a new trial.