According to the constitution and laws, a "autrefois acquit" is a declaration that an individual who has been charged with a crime has not actually committed it. (Kumar, 2016). The law also demonstrates that the defendant making the request should have been exonerated of the same crime or misdemeanor, and that exoneration must occur following a trial in which the juror renders its decision based on a legally admissible indictment.
According to the law, there are several circumstances that can exempt someone from criminal responsibility: mental incapacity, intoxication, factual error, and pressure. (Eser, 2015). Mental incompetence shows that at the time the crime was committed, he or she was suffering from a mental defect or disease which may destroy the person’s capacity to control and conform to the law requirements. Hence, when the perpetrator of the offense is mentally incompetent, he or she cannot be considered to be morally blameworthy (Green, 2014).
Moreover, one can be exempted from criminal responsibility when the person commits the crime when intoxicated. The intoxication, in this case, destroys the perpetrator’s ability to control their conduct which leads to the person disregarding the risks of having committed the crime (Eser, 20150. Also, a person committing a crime under duress can be exempted from criminal responsibility (Singh, 2015). The perpetrator will be excused based on the human frailty to commit a crime as a means to avert imminent danger posed to his or her life. Besides, a person may be exempted from criminal responsibility when the crime is committed as a result of one mistaking the fact. The mistake of fact should be honest in a manner that the person deems a given circumstance is considered to be true by the perpetrator, and the situation may justify the offender’s conduct (Adjorlolo, Agboli & Chan, 2016).
References
Adjorlolo, S., Agboli, J. M., & Chan, H. C. (2016). Criminal responsibility and the insanity defence in Ghana: The examination of legal standards and assessment issues. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 23(5), 684-695.
Eser, A. (2015). . Grounds for excluding criminal responsibility (pp. 1126-1161). Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG.
Green, T. A. (2014). Freedom and criminal responsibility in American legal thought. Cambridge University Press.
Kumar, S. (2016). Double Jeopardy Jurisprudence in India. International Journal of Scientific Research, 4(11).
Singh, M. K. S. (2015). 027_Criminal Responsibility.
