Criminal Law: Causation Flashcards
What is substantial cause?
Where the prosecution has to show that the defendant’s conduct was the factual and legal cause of the consequences.
What is Good Samaritan law?
It makes a person responsible for helping other people in emergency situations.
For example, during Princess Diana’s crash in Paris in 1997, the French authorities threatened to charge the journalists, who were taking pictures under the Good Samaritan law.
What is factual cause?
When the defendant can only be guilty if the consequences would not have happened ‘but for’ the defendant’s conduct.
What are two example cases where the ‘but for’ test for factual causation is used?
R V Pagett 1983: where the defendant was convicted of manslaughter for causing the police to shoot the victim when the defendant used her as a human shield. Her death would not have happened ‘but for’ the defendant’s actions.
R V White 1910: the defendant was found not guilty for murder because he didn’t cause his mother’s death, but was guilty of attempted murder because he put cyanide in her drink, intending to kill her.
What is legal cause?
Where the defendant is guilty if their conduct is more de minimis (minimal cause) of the consequence.
(operating and substantial test)
What is an example case where the de minimis principle (operating and substantial test) was used?
R V Smith 1959: where a soldier is stabbed during a fight, but although he had been dropped several times on the way to the hospital, the court held that the stabbing was the operating and substantial cause of the victim’s death.
What is the thin skull rule?
Take your victim as you find them.
When the victim has something unusual about their physical or mental state which makes an injury more serious, so the defendant is liable for the more serious injury.
What is an example case where the thin skull rule was used?
R V Blaue 1975: The defendant, was found guilty of manslaughter as the woman’s religion, whom he stabbed, prevented her from having a blood transfusion.
What is an intervening act?
When an event breaks the chain of causation.
What is an example case where the intervening act principle was used?
R V Malcherek 1981: Where the doctors switched off the victim’s life support machine who had been stabbed by the defendant. The court held that the doctor’s actions did not break the chain of causation.
If the defendant causes the victim to react in a reasonably foreseeable way, then any injury to the victim would be considered to have been caused by the defendant.
What is an example case that shows this?
R V Roberts 1972: The defendant was found guilty of sexual assault with causing actual bodily harm because he intended to apply unlawful force when he tried to take her coat off causing the victim to jump out of a moving vehicle.
