Adolescent with a severe mental disorder at the time of the crime

When a person is imposed criminal liability should the judgment indicate how the person's guilt in the form of intent or negligence is proved. If the accused suffered from a serious mental disorder at time of the offense it can often cause difficult legal considerations for the judges, which are partly based on medical expert advice. It the accused is also young, especially aged 15 years, in the view of the young person's personal growth and experience, it can be even more complicated for the Court to rule on the question of liability. The problems in this area are in part due to that under Swedish law can criminal liability be imposed even if the accused was suffering from a serious mental disorder at the time of the act. Still, intent or negligence of the accused must always be demonstrated. The project aims to analyze the case law in the form of collected court cases over a 10-year period. Of interest is to understand how the courts reasoning in the determination of criminal liability in cases where the accused suffered from a severe mental disorder at the time of the act and were aged 15-21 years. These people are a particularly vulnerable group. This is another reason why those cases in accordance with the requirement of fair trial under Art. 6 ECHR have to be studied more closely.