Elements of offences

Question 1

Kilbride

Answer 1

WOF removed from his car. COC was broken

Question 2

Tifaga

Answer 2

Did not leave NZ when supposed to (permit) becuase he didnt habve money for flight. But this was NOT impossibility of compliance

Question 3

Moloney

Answer 3

INTENTION
Killing of father during drunken competition. need overwhelming certainty for intention. Golden rule (judges should avoid lengthy explanations of intention). Intention should not be equated with desire or motive. Foresight of consequences is evidence for jury.

Question 4

Woollin

Answer 4

3 month old baby on hard floor. Trial judge wrong to refer to substantial risk. It made test for intention too wide; blurred line between intention and recklessness. It should be direct intent > virtual certainty > substantial risk (recklessness = likely or probable consequences.)

Question 5

Miller

Answer 5

Lit a cigarette, went to bed and dozed off
AR satisfied (act)

Question 6

Nicholson

Answer 6

Benefit fraud. HELD - The department can still persue Ms Nicholson for the underpayment. (AR by omission)

Question 7

Larsonneur

Answer 7

French traveler deported back to England against will (passport issues)
(AR by statuses & states of affair)

Question 8

what the prosecution has to prove for MR

Answer 8

1. COC not broken (involuntariness), Kilbride
2. Justifiable Breach (impossibility of compliance) Tifaga

Question 9

types of intention

Answer 9

1. Direct intention: D acts with actual/direct intent in order to bring about a particular consequence: D “means to” cause the consequence
2. Oblique (or indirect) intention: D does not act with actual/direct intent to bring about the consequence, but D nonetheless foresees the consequence as a natural consequence and one that is virtually certain or inevitable if they continue the conduct.

Question 10

Strawbridge

Answer 10

-Charged with cultivating weed
-This was a high punishable offence (14 years imprisonment)
- This section however, was quiet on MR. The courts said as a matter of principle, parliament must have intended MR to be a element of the offence. Parliament would not rely on the actus reus alone.
= PRESUMED MR

Question 11

Moloney

Answer 11

Drunken accidental killing of father in competition with guns.
-‘Golden rule’ - judges should avoid lengthy explanations and leave it to jury’s good sense to determine whether D intended the result
-“Intent should not be equated with motive or desire” (a person who ‘intends’ a result in the legal sense may not necessarily ‘want’ or ‘desire’ that result
-‘Foresight of consequences’ is merely evidence from which a jury may infer intention, so long as D foresaw the result as an overwhelming certainty.

Question 12

Woollin

Answer 12

Threw 3 month old baby onto a hard floor, causing the baby’s death. - CA dismissed the appeal. HL quashed murder and substituted manslaughter.
-Trial judge wrong to refer to substantial risk. It made test for intention too wide; blurred line between intention and recklessness
-Direct intent > virtual certainty > substantial risk (recklessness = likely or probable consequences.)

Question 13

Woolin confirms R v Nedrick

Answer 13

” The jury should be directed that they are not entitled to infer the necessary intention, unless they feel sure that death or serious bodily harm was a virtual certainty”

Question 14

Wentworth

Answer 14

Pharmacist providing codeine for heroin manufacturing. Equates foresight with intention, cant plead ignorance. Intention and motive NOT the same

Question 15

R v Matthews

Answer 15

Knowing V could not swim, they threw him off a bridge and into a river where he drowned. Forsight of virtual certianty. It had to be a “virtual certainty” they must have intended to kill V..

Question 16

Crooks

Answer 16

Flatted with Bell, who had committed two burglaries. Knowledge is therefore treated as including D’s ‘belief’ = subjective assessment of evidence/information leading one to accept a proposition or the existence of a set of facts

Question 17

R v Piri

Answer 17

Ds tied V to a tree and left her
Direct intent

Question 18

Taylor

Answer 18

Established that Eng cases weren’t as relevant. Not always virtual certianty.
The law of intent in murder requires nothing more than direct intention.
But the ‘virtual certainty’ test has relevance in other contexts

Question 19

Martin

Answer 19

• Importing 3+kgs of cocaine into NZ in ornamental statues.
• Intention and knowledge deal in virtual certainty of knowledge
• CA sets out the test for ‘wilful blindness’
• deliberate failure to inquire when the accused knows there is reason for inquiry. (silent as to MR)
• NOT the same threshold as Crooks. Crooks said failure to inquire does not elevate suspicion into belief; also said it was for the jury to infer knowledge.
• Distinction
• Crooks = once you had evidence you leave to for the jury to infer knowledge
• Current case = once you say D had suspicion = the law will presume knowledge

Question 20

Police v K

Answer 20

• D convicted of contravening a parenting order.
  
  • Was evidence D had taken child to doctor that day, and he also claimed he could not contact the ‘go between’.
  • CA disregard’s HC’s requirement of proof of intent AND motive.
  • Once you have a D and you are satisfied they saw event A, and B is a consequence of A, why should they get off?

Question 21

KNOWLEDGE cases

Answer 21

Crooks
Martin

Question 22

RECKLESSNESS cases

Answer 22

R v G
Harney
Tipple
Heihei
Hay
Cameron

Question 23

what is recklessness

Answer 23

Recklessness is about consciously taking unjustified or unreasonable risks. Doesn’t have to be virtual certainty otherwise there would have to be evidence of recklessness awareness

Question 24

R v G (2003)

Answer 24

• Boys set fire to newspapers, threw them under a plastic dustbin; fire spread to shops; substantial damage.
  
  • Subjective test

Question 25

R v Harney

Answer 25

-Leading NZ decision
-Man stabbed another man in brawl, supposedly wasn’t aiming for the head. ‘No intention to kill’
-The CA fully establishes that recklessness in NZ would be assessed subjectively

Question 26

Tipple

Answer 26

• Confirms the Harney subjective approach (“at least in the context of discharging firearms” )
  
  • Appellant had been supervising a shooting party on his parents farm
  • 600 m in front of target there was a road, where you could see the cars.

Question 27

Heihei v NZ Police

Answer 27

• Appellant shot at drone
  
  • Someone was taking photos of farmers property, lawfully on private property
  • DCJ wrong to say reckless disregard was met because D “should have known” of the risk.
  • Goes with tipple approach - subjectivity

Question 28

R v Hay

Answer 28

• Suppose D doesn’t see the risk, but tried to minimalize it - is D still reckless
  
  • Hay along with other person stole a car
  • They pulled the car seats out of the car using an electric grinder
  • Hay proceeds to do this while standing in puddle of fuel
  • He turned his mind to the possibility [of the risk] but did not go ahead with an act he knew would probably cause the damage, he went ahead with an act that he thought would not cause the damage.
    He was standing in the fuel

Question 29

Cameron v R

Answer 29

• D and others found guilty of importing, selling, having possession of class C drug (s 6 MDA).
  
  • Where MR silent, recklessness is the MR
  • Recklessness being:
    (a) The defendant recognised that there was a real possibility that:
    (i) His or her actions would bring about the proscribed result; and/or
    (ii) That the proscribed circumstances existed; and
    (b) Having regard to that risk those actions were unreasonable (eg compared ot surgeon)
  • Intention and recklessness distinct (opposite ends of spectrum)