Where an offender's mental impairment at the time of offending is predominantly attributable to voluntary ingestion of illicit drugs, the impairment is not generally mitigating even where an underlying depressive syndrome contributed to the drug use. The offender bears the onus of proving on the balance of probabilities that mental impairment reduced culpability. A sentence of 12 years for manslaughter (against a 20-year maximum) was upheld for a shooting death during enforcement of a drug debt, confirming the upward trend in manslaughter sentences in Western Australia.
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