Criminal - Murder Flashcards
Actus Reus
D must cause the:
- Unlawful killing (Coke)
- of a human being (not unborn child - (Poulton)
- under the Queen’s peace (Coke; R v Clegg)
Causation
Causation is a question for the jury to determine (Rv Clarke and Morabir)
1) Factual causation:
- “but for test” (White)
- acceleration must be significant (more than minimal) (Cheshire)
2) Legal Causation:
- Must be caused by D’s culpable act (Dalloway)
- D’s act doesn’t have to be the only cause (Benge) needs to only contribute significantly to the result (Pagett)
- Malcherek Steel - Novus actus (consider foreseeability) & Op.+sub.
R v Dalloway
Must be caused by D’s culpable act
R v Benge
D doesn’t have to be the only cause
R v Malcherek & Steel
No Legal causation if:
- An event intervenes between D’s conduct and the end result, unless the event was foreseen / foreseeable; or
- an act by another person intervenes between D’s conduct and the end result, unless the injuries inflicted by D were still the ‘operating and substantial’ cause of death.
R v Pagett
D’s act need not be the sole cause of the Victim’s death, it need only contribute significantly to the result (there can be multiple defendants)
R v Haywood
Take Victim as you find them (if Victim refuses blood transfusion, D can’t assert novus actus)
R v Mackie
If death from fright, where there are no physical injuries, use reasonably foreseeable test from Mackie.
R v Smith
Novus actus - medical negligence
There will be a legal causation if the original wound is still an operating and substantial cause of death at the time of death.
R v Cheshire
Acceleration must be significant
Medical negligence will only break causation if ‘so independant of D’s acts and in itself so potent in causing death, that D’s acts were an insignificant contribution to death’.
Mens Rea
“With malice aforethought” - Homicide Act 1957
- intention to kill or cause GBH, i.e. very serious harm (R v Vickers)
- NOT recklessness (Maloney)
- Irrelevant that D killed with benevolent intentions, as in mercy killings (R v Inglis)
If partial defences apply (diminished responsibility or loss of control), offence will be reduced from murder to VOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER
DPP v Smith
Policeman + car
- intention to cause GBH is sufficient for murder Mens Rea.
R v Moloney
intention = “aim or purpose”
Recklessness cannot form Mens Rea for Murder.
R v Inglis
Benevolent intentions (e.g. mercy killings) are irrelevant for murder mens rea.
Partial Defences
Loss of Control (ss.54& and 55 Coroners and Justice Act 2009) and Diminished responsibility (s.2 Homicide Act)
- reduce to voluntary manslaughter.
R v Vickers
Murder mens rea - “intention to to kill or cause GBH”
R v Woolin
Mens Rea - Oblique intention:
1) death or GBH was a virtual certainty (barring some unforeseen event) as a result of D’s actions;
2) D appreciated that this was the case.
R v Saunders
GBH defined as “serious harm”
R v Dear
Legal causation - acts of the victim - suicide
If V dies from original wound, chain is not broken; may be different if suicide is unconnected to the attack and is not reasonably foreseeable.
R v Kennedy
Legal causation - acts of the victim
A person who supplies drugs is not liable for death, chain of causation is broken by voluntary and informed decision to act.
R v Adebelajo
“Under the King’s peace” refers to jurisdiction (a British subject, or if not, within England and Wales”.
Partial defence - loss of control
ss.54 and 55 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009
Burden on prosecution to prove that loss of control doesn’t apply.
Three elements to consider (R v Clinton):
1) Did D kill someone as a result of losing control?
2) Did loss of control have qualifying trigger?
3) Might another person have acted in a similar way?
Loss of control - Losing control
1) Did D kill someone as a result of losing control?
- Loss of temper not enough (R v Richens - rape)
- Needn’t be complete loss (R v Cocker - wife euthanasia)
- Need not be sudden (R v Ahluwalia - petrol over husband)
Loss of control - Qualifying Trigger
2) Did loss of control have a qualifying trigger under s.54(1)(b)?
1) subjective fear of serious violence (R v Martin - shot burglar - when self-defence is unreasonable), or
2a) things said or done that ‘constitute circumstances of an extremely grave character’ (ss55(4)(a)) (must actually be said or done. Can’t be by circumstance (R v Accot))
2b) which ‘caused D to have justifiable sense of being seriously wronged’ (s.55(40(b)). (objective test)
Not defensible if:
- “Considered” revenge (R v Clinton)
- D created qualifying trigger as excuse
- resulted only from sexual infidelity
