Chapter 8: Criminal Homicide: Murder Flashcards
What are the 2 types of homicide?
Murder
Manslaughter
What are the 2 types of manslaughter? What can be distinguished?
Voluntary Manslaughter (defence)
- When the defendant is accused of murder, and the foreseeability of risk drops, then the defendant is convicted for recklessness and charged drops from murder to manslaughter
Involuntary manslaughter (charge)
What are the 2 types of defences of voluntary manslaughter?
- Loss of control
- Diminished responsibility
What are the 3 types of charge for involuntary manslaugther?
- Constructive manslaughter
- Gross negligence manslaughter
- Reckless manslaughter
What is the mens rea regarding manslaughter?
There is no intention to kill
on the basis that, D was reckless (had no intention)
What are the only defences used for manslaughter?
Only general defences
What is the sentencing for murder?
Life imprisonment
What is the mens rea regarding murder?
Prosecution must establish intention to kill
What are the types of defences to murder?
General defences
&
Specific defences
What is the charge for murder?
Verict must be guilty of murder
- But law feels its unfair to give life sentencing for murder
What can defence do if charged for murder?
Then defence can (most of the time) trigger voluntary manslaughter
- If defence is successful, then verdict becomes “guilty of manslaughter”
- Then sentencing is reduced from life imprisonment to maximum sentencing of life imprisonment (changed to guilty of manslaughter)
What is the definition of murder given by Sir Edward Coke?
“Murder is when a man of sound memory and of the age of discreation, unlawfully killeth within any country of the realm any reasonable creature in rerum natura under the King’s peace, with malice aforethought either expressed by the party or implied by law, so as the party wounded, or hurt, etc. die of the wound or hurt, etc. within a year and a day of the same.”
(sound memory) and (age of discretion) is seen as a defence that can be brought up
What are the 5 elements of actus reus to prove murder?
- Unlawful killing
- Within any county of the realm
- Any reasonable creature in rerum natura
- Under the King’s peace
- Within a year and a day
Within a year and a day is no longer used/abolished
What is meant by “within county of the realm”
Unlawful act was conducting in UK soil, which consist of
1. UK soil
2. UK waters
3. UK air space
4. UK citizen (either defendant or victim is UK citizen)
- Section 9 Offences Against the Person Act 1861
- Section 3 British Nationality Act 1948
What is meant by “Any reasonable creature in rerum natura”
A person is only guilty of murder if he kills a person of “in being”
- Meaning the time when the person starts living and stops living
- So if killed before start/after end, then not constituted as murder
What is an example of a person being and not being “in being”
Not “in being”
- Baby still in the womb of the mother
- A person that is deemed “brain-stem dead” - Airedale NHST v Bland
“in being”
- A child must be wholly expelled from the mother and having existence independent of the mother
What are the cases within the idea of “any reasonable creature in rerum natura”
- R v Poulton [1833]
- R v Enoch [1833]
- R v West [1848]
- R v Brain
- Airedale NHS Trust v Bland
What is meant by “King’s Peace”
This means the unlawful conduct occured udring peacetime, where UK is not at war
What is meant by “within a year and a day”. What happened to this element today?
Means that the conduct occured in the 365 + 1 days
Although it has been abolished. Overruled by the (A year and a day rule) Act 1996
What is the mens rea element in murder?
“Malice aforethought”
- Meaning the intention to kill or;
- intention to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH)
What case showcases malice aforethought?
R v Maloney suggested
1. The mens rea for murder is intention to kill or intention to cause GBH (This is part of substantive law)
2. That mere foresight of the probable consequence is not equivalent to intention
3. The foresight is an issue of the law of evidence and not substantive law
After moloney, they don’t consider motive
What can the law impose, when someone causes harm to a different object, than the one he had in mind, which is due to an accident or mistake?
Coincidence of AR and MR
The law uses these 2 doctrine to impose full criminal respobsibility on the defendant by
- Doctrine of Transferred Malice
- Doctrine of Continuous Act
What is the Doctrine of Transferred Malice? What is needed for this doctrine to be properly applied?
2 scenarios
1. When X intended to kill Y, but ended up killing Z
2. If X kills Y, thinking that Z is Y
Outcome
- If the MR is exactly the same for both acts, then the AR and MR are combined
R v Mitchell
X intended to kill Y, but ended up killing Z
Doctrine of transferred malice
R v latimer
X wanted to kill Y, thinking Z was Y
Doctrine of transferred malice
What is the Doctrine of Continuous Act? What is the requirement for this to apply?
- Concurrence requires AR and MR to coincide at a point in time. This is known as temporal coincidence
- It is also required that MR matches or corresponds with the AR. Known as the correspondence principle
R v Thabo Meli
Facts:
1. M and N wanted to kill the V with intoxication
2. Behind the wheels rolled the car off cliff
3. Car fell over the cliff but V did not die
4. V died because of the elements
Held: It was one series of acts. There isin’t any coincidence, but formed a series of coincidences through the string of continuous acts
R v Church
Facts:
- H intended to kill wife, upstairs, punched the wife so hard unconscious and thought that she died
- Dragged her outside
- Throws into river
- Unconscious drown
Held: It was one series of acts
