What does 'infanticide' mean in NZ law? And what must the jury decide in Lauren Dickason's trial?

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The current trial of Lauren Dickason is a case in point, and the jury has a complex task in front of it.

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The Conversation

URL:

https://theconversation.com/what-does-infanticide-mean-in-nz-law-and-what-must-the-jury-decide-in-lauren-dickasons-trial-210630

Retrieved on:

Monday, July 31, 2023

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Geotags:

NEW ZEALAND

Summary

Key Points:

The current trial of Lauren Dickason is a case in point, and the jury has a complex task in front of it.
The latter may seem like a statement of the obvious, given Dickason does not deny the killings.
What legislation and other sources of law mean is often contestable, and there may be specialised definitions.

Murder and manslaughter

But the language used reflects a structure that goes back to English law from centuries ago, and is split into two offences: murder and manslaughter.
Basically, murder is killing someone with “malice aforethought”, and manslaughter is any other culpable killing.
But variations were introduced largely to avoid the formerly mandatory death penalty for murder, by allowing the offence to be stepped down to manslaughter.
That condition was removed after Clayton Weatherston tried to use it in his trial for the 2008 murder of Sophie Elliott.

Infanticide and insanity

New Zealand has never had such “diminished responsibility” – except in relation to infanticide.
Infanticide has a legalistic meaning in the courtroom: it does not mean the killing of an infant.
But the legislation also notes that if the defendant’s disorder was so great that there was insanity, then there must be a “special verdict of acquittal on account of insanity caused by childbirth”.

Modern psychiatry and Victorian language

The law relating to insanity still uses language from Victorian times.
It applies to all offences, though it is most prominently used in homicide cases.
The doctors giving expert evidence have to try to mould modern understandings of psychiatry into this outdated legal framework, which has limited nuance to it.

The jury’s challenge

Having considered whether the deaths would otherwise have been murder or manslaughter, they will then have to consider whether the expert evidence shows there was some disturbance in her mental health.
If so, and if it was caused by childbirth or lactation, was it far enough down the line to amount to infanticide?