Jamie Mark Walvisch

Sentencing Offenders with Impaired Mental Functioning: Developing Australia's “Most Sophisticated and Subtle” Analysis

When the Victorian Court of Appeal decision in R v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269 was handed down, it was described as Australias ‘most sophisticated and subtle analysis’ of the relevance of psychiatric symptomatology to sentencing. In the two years since Verdins was decided, it has been raised in over 100 cases in Victoria alone. This article examines those cases, looking at how the law has developed since 2007. In the course of doing so, the author highlights a number of gaps which still exist in relation to the sentencing of offenders with impaired mental functioning. He concludes by suggesting an approach to filling those gaps, and to addressing this complex issue in general.