A syndrome relates to a blend of signs and symptoms that show that a person is suffering from a particular ailment, disease or disorder. A syndrome based defense is thus where a defendant uses an ailment or disorder to escape criminal liability (Schmalleger et. al, 2010). In such case, though they admit doing the offence, they argue that either they lacked criminal intent or that the action was involuntary. An important aspect of a syndrome based defense is that the disease complained of must either be a disease of the mind or affect the mind.
Syndromes may thus be regarded as excuses as they operate ...
