3. Homicide-Related Offences - Progress Test 3

Question 1

1. Sections 151 and 152 of the Crimes Act 1961 list the legal duties regarding providing those things and conditions necessary to sustain life and protect from injury. Outline the
   provisions.

Answer 1

Legal duties regarding provision of the necessaries and to take reasonable steps to protect that person from injury apply to those having actual care or charge of people who are vulnerable adults or, in the case of a parent or a person acting in the place of a parent having
actual care or charge of a child under 18 years.

Question 2

2. What types of things fall into the category of dangerous things discussed in s156 of the
   Crimes Act 1961?

Answer 2

Section 156 of the Crimes Act 1961 sets out the statutory duty of people in charge of
dangerous things to take reasonable precautions to ensure people’s safety. Such things include motor vehicles, trains, animals, ships, weapons, machinery or explosives, and may include such things as the machinery inside a mussel factory, faulty scaffolding that collapses because of faulty erection and inspection, unfenced holes or other industrial-type incidents,
depending on the circumstances

Question 3

3. In one incident a man stabs a woman repeatedly; the same thing happens in another incident involving a different man and woman. As a result, both women need to undergo emergency surgery during which both die of heart failure. The first woman suffers heart failure in an unpredicted reaction to the anaesthetic, whereas the second woman, although she suffers the
   same reaction and with the same result, wears a medic-alert badge carrying information about her known heart condition and reaction to anaesthetic. Is there any difference in these cases?
   Is anybody held legally responsible for either of their deaths? If so, who, and what would the charge be?

Answer 3

3. If a woman is stabbed repeatedly and, during emergency surgery in relation to those wounds, dies of a heart attack where all reasonable precautions have been taken, the person who stabbed her initially and not the medical staff are responsible for her death. The degree of liability depends on the element of mens rea and whether the attack was provoked. However,
   if the woman was wearing a medic-alert bracelet that described her heart condition and her reaction to anaesthetic, and the anaesthetist failed to notice it, the person who did the
   stabbing would not be culpable and the anaesthetist’s actions would need to be scrutinised
   under the provisions of s155 of the Crimes Act 1961 (duty of persons doing dangerous acts)
   to evaluate their responsibility. Simply, the death needs to be a direct result of the initial
   attack and not related to another condition.

Question 4

4. Is a person who helps another person commit suicide criminally liable for their actions? Explain your answer.

Answer 4

5. Yes they are criminally liable.
   Section 179 makes it an offence for a person (Person A) to assist another person (Person B)
   to commit suicide without any intention of Person A committing suicide themselves. For example, when a terminally ill person (Person B) asks their partner to help them commit
   suicide and their partner (Person A) does. Person A would be liable for aiding and abetting
   suicide, which has a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment. Section 180(1) makes it an offence to enter into a suicide pact, and only one person dies as a result of an action by another person. For example if Person A and Person B enter a suicide pact, and Person A shoots Person B, killing Person B, before shooting themselves, but Person B lives. Person B would be guilty of manslaughter, and not murder.
   60 Homicide Law and Defences
   Section 180(2) makes it an offence for two people to enter into a suicide pact, where they are both responsible for the actions that caused one of their deaths (Person A), and where one person survives (Person B). For example if Person A and Person B both self administer a
   high dosage of morphine and Person A dies as a result of their own actions, but Person B
   survives the overdose. Person B would be guilty of being a party to a death under a suicide
   pact and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years. Person B cannot be convicted of an offence under s. 179 of the Crimes Act (Aiding and Abetting Suicide).