essential crim cases mens rea Flashcards
Attorney-General’s Reference (No. 3 of 1994) [1998] AC 245, House of Lords
A man, known in the case simply as B, had stabbed a pregnant woman (M) in the abdomen. B knew that M was pregnant; indeed, he was the father. M was taken to hospital and, 16 days later, gave birth to a premature child. The child lived for 121 days and then died from broncho-pulmonary dysplasia, caused by the effects of premature birth.
Although the foetus had been cut by the wound, this was had not caused the child’s death. The premature birth was, however, brought on by the attack on the mother. B was charged with murder. He had been convicted of wounding M, but, after the child’s death, he was charged with murder.
The trial judge at the murder trial ruled, following the prosecution case, that B had no case to answer. He was properly convicted of wounding M, but could not be convicted in relation to the death of the child.
The prosecution appealed on the general question of whether, in a case in which a child dies as a result of injuries sustained while in utero, her assailant can be guilty of murder or manslaughter.
The real difficulty facing the prosecution was therefore proving not the actus reus, but the mens rea. To establish the charge of murder, the difficulty was that, at the time of the actus reus (the stabbing of the victim), the defendant had no mens rea in relation to the victim (the child). The only possible argument therefore lay in the doctrine of transferred mens rea. The difficulty was that although the defendant had an intention to cause grievous bodily harm to the woman, that mens rea had to be transferred to the foetus, who, at that point, did not exist as a person.
outcome
However, these problems with transferred mens rea did not cause a problem for constructive manslaughter. Their Lordships confirmed the three elements of constructive manslaughter at being that:
1.
there needed to be an unlawful act;
2.
the unlawful act had to be dangerous; and
3.
the unlawful and dangerous act had to cause the death of the victim.
Crucially, for this this case, their Lordships confirmed that the act did not need to be lawful or dangerous in relation to the ultimate victim. In this case, the defendant had committed an unlawful act against M (wounding), it was a dangerous act (to M), and it had caused the death of a person
There was therefore no need to transfer any mens rea and so the difficulties that existed for murder did not arise in relation to manslaughter. The defendant could therefore have been properly convicted for manslaughter, but not murder
r v woollin facts
Stephen Woollin was charged with the murder of his 3-month-old son. Woollin lost his temper and threw his son onto a hard surface, which fractured the child’s skull and caused his death. The key issue at the trial was whether the defendant had the necessary mens rea for murder—that is, an intent to kill or to cause grievous bodily harm. It was accepted that he did not desire to kill or cause his son serious injury, but it was argued that he must have foreseen that, by throwing his son, he might cause an injury. The trial judge directed the jury that if they were quite satisfied that the appellant must have realized and appreciated that when he threw the child down, there was a substantial risk that he would cause serious harm to the child, then it would be open to them to find that he intended to cause a serious injury and to convict of murder.
The House of Lords allowed the appeal and quashed the murder conviction, substituting a conviction for manslaughter. They confirmed that, in most cases, a simple direction was sufficient: the jury were to give intent its normal meaning. That is generally taken to be aim or purpose
