DPP 5th Annual Lecture
- Events
- 6 Jan 2016
Our 5th annual lecture, “Mental Disorder and the Death Penalty” will be held at the Photographers’ Gallery in London on Wednesday, 6 January 2016. The lecture is being held in conjunction with the exhibition Burden of Proof: The Construction of Visual Evidence and will be delivered by Professor Nigel Eastman, Emeritus Professor of Law and Ethics in Psychiatry, St George’s University of London. Professor Eastman will describe the failings of both psychiatry and law justly to reflect what should be the modifying effect of mental disorder on both verdict and sentencing in capital cases.
About Professor Nigel Eastman
Nigel Eastman is Professor Emeritus of Law and Ethics in Psychiatry in the University of London and an Honorary Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist in the National Health Service. Alongside his medical training he was called to the Bar, in Gray’s Inn, in 1976. He has carried out research and published widely on the relationship between law and psychiatry, whilst also having nearly thirty years experience of clinical forensic psychiatry. He has extensive experience of acting as an expert witness in both criminal and civil proceedings, in England and Wales and in the jurisdictions of other countries. This includes twenty years experience of assessing death row cases for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Much of his work has been concerned with matters of public policy and, for example, he has given evidence to Parliamentary Select Committees on law and psychiatry. He advised the Law Commission during its work towards reforming the partial defence to murder of ‘diminished responsibility’ and later lectured to all ‘murder ticket’ judges on the new statutory provisions, for the Judicial Studies Board. Professor Eastman is an expert member of the Foreign Secretary’s International Death Penalty Panel. He is a founder member of Forensic Psychiatry Chambers.
