Case Law: Homicide Flashcards
R v Moloney (1985) House of Lords
About: Oblique Intent
Facts: The defendant fatally shoots his stepfather. They had been at a family celebration and had consumed a quantity of alcohol. At the end of the party, the two stayed up drinking and had a disagreement. The defendant told his stepson that he could load, draw and shoot a gun quicker than him and to get the guns. The defendant was first to load and draw. The stepfather said, “ I don’t think you have got the guts but if you have, pull the trigger”. The defendant pulled the trigger but in his drunken state, he did not believe the gun was aimed at the stepfather, it killed him.
Issue: The trial judge directed on oblique intent (this means the defendant foresaw his actions) and the jury convicted. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and the defendant appealed to the House of Lords.
Finding: The defendant’s conviction for murder was substituted for manslaughter. It was not a case of oblique intent and the judge should not have issued a direction relation to further expansion of intention.
R v Clift and R v Harrison (2012)
About: Being tried for Murder having already been convicted of GBH and use of previous jury opinion
Facts: Both appellants were convicted of murder several years after they had inflicted what eventually proved to be fatal injuries to their victims. While their victims were still alive, both DEFENDANTS were convicted of wounding with intent (s18).
Issue: The basis for each appeal was that earlier convictions based on the opinion of juries, as expressed in their verdicts, were irrelevant and inadmissible at the subsequent trials.
Finding: The prosecution is not required to prove again all the matters proved to the criminal standard. The defendant is not prevented from denying these issues, but the burden is reversed so that the defendant must prove on the balance of probability that the jury were wrong on any of the issues covered by the original conviction. In trials such as these, the judges are right not to use their discretion to exclude this evidence.
R v LeBrun (1991)
About: The defendant must take his victim as he finds him under the ‘egg-shell skull’ rule:
Facts: A husband and wife had a fight in which he knocked her unconscious. In trying to remove her body, he dropped her causing her skull to fracture and hence she died.
Issue: That the movement of the body was not part of the assault and the dropping was accidental. Therefore the mens rea and actus reus were separate.
Finding: He was found guilty of manslaughter. The mens rea was contained in the initial assault and the actus reus was in dropping her, because they did not perfectly coincide does not release the defendant from his liability, therefore the appeal was dismissed.
R v Cheshire (1991)
About: Chain of Causation
Facts: The defendant shot a man in the stomach and thigh. The man was taken to hospital where he was operated on and developed breathing difficulties. The hospital gave him a tracheotomy (a tube inserted into the windpipe connected to a ventilator). Several weeks later his wounds were healing and no longer life-threatening, however, he continued to have breathing difficulty and died from complications arising from the tracheotomy. The defendant was convicted of murder and appealed.
Issue: That it was the tracheotomy that caused the death, not the gunshot.
Findings: His conviction was upheld despite the fact that the wounds were not the operative cause of death. Intervening medical treatment could only be regarded as excluding the responsibility of the defendant if it was so independent of the defendant’s act and so potent in causing the death, that the jury regard the defendant’s acts as insignificant. Since the defendant had shot the victim this could not be regarded as insignificant.
R v Pagett (1983)
About: Intervening Act (Third party interventions)
Facts: The defendant appealed against a conviction of manslaughter having been acquitted of murder. The circumstances being that he shot at a police officer who was trying to arrest him, and subsequently attempted to then use a pregnant girl as a human shield to defend himself against returning fire by the officer. The officer duly fire, unfortunately killing the girl.
Issue: Whether the officer’s actions broke the chain of causation between the defendant’s actions and the death of the girl.
Findings: Such an act will not break the chain unless it was a free, deliberate, informed, voluntary act, which was not reasonably foreseeable by a reasonable person. The defendant had done two dangerous acts which a sober and reasonable person would realise were likely to cause harm in this situation, firstly by firing at the officer and secondly by forcing the victim to shield him from the return fire. Both of these acts had in fact contributed significantly to the victim’s death. The conviction of manslaughter was therefore upheld.
R v AG 1994 (1997)
About: Intervening Act (Third-party interventions)
Facts: The defendant stabbed his pregnant girlfriend in the face, abdomen and back when she was 22 weeks pregnant. 17 days later the woman went into premature labour and gave birth to a live baby. The baby died 121 days later due to the premature birth. The defendant was charged with wounding and GBH on the mother and received a sentence of 4 years. He was also charged with murder and manslaughter of the baby.
Issue: Whether the crimes of murder or manslaughter can be committed where an unlawful injury is deliberately inflicted to a child in utero or to a mother carrying a child in utero where the child is subsequently born alive but then dies.
Findings: The court of appeal held that the actions could amount to constructive manslaughter. There was no requirement that the foetus be classed as a human being, provided causation was proved. The attack on the mother was an unlawful act which caused the death of the baby. There is no requirement under constructive manslaughter that the unlawful act is aimed at the actual victim or that the unlawful act was directed at a human being.
