THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF THE STATUTORY CRIMINAL DEFENCE OF IMMATURE AGE

Abstract

It is common knowledge that whenever a defendant who is standing criminal trial is found guilty of an offence, hisconstitutionally guaranteed liberty is severely curtailed or his life abruptly taken by the State. Due to its harshnessand seemingly draconian principles associated with criminal jurisprudence, certain special mitigatingcircumstances are provided by statutes to serve as shields. One of such unique circumstances is the statutorycriminal defence of immature age. Whenever it is successfully raised and defended it amounts to a solemnjustification for the specific offence. The above explanation prominently results to either an outright exculpationfrom criminal liability or the punishment drastically reduced to the barest minimum. It is therefore, the intendmentof this scholarly investigation to critically examine the philosophical root, the raison d’etre of including the defenceof immature age as a statutory criminal defence. This is specifically aimed at ascertaining whether the defence ofimmature age as provided by law is neurologically oriented. In other words, the work is beamed to answer thequestion why the defence of immature age in criminal jurisprudence? The methodological approach adopted toanalyse the selected indices is doctrinal, using primary and secondary sources of information as styles of datacollection.