HOMICIDE Flashcards
AR of murder:
Act or Omission e.g. Gibbons vs Proctor (1918)
Unlawful killing
Person (unborn is not a person, brain dead is legally dead)
Queen’s peace - kill in war is not criminal offence
MR of Murder
Homicide act 1957 - “killing shall not amount to murder unless done with…malice aforethought”
Cunningham (1982) - this case defined ‘malice aforethought’ as an intention to kill OR an intention to cause grievous bodily harm (where causing death is the result)
Direct intention of murder
D intending to produce specific result - moloney 1985
Indirect/oblique intention of murder
Woollin (1999)
Even if D did not intend to kill, can still be found guilty if a) Death or GBH was virtually certain consequence
b) D appreciated this was the case
murder: sentencing
<1965 - death penalty used
1965< - mandatory life sentence, often get out eventually. life order only for most serious offences
Partial defences of voluntary manslaughter
Diminished responsibility
Loss of control
Suicide pact
Diminished responsibility pre-2009
s.2 Homicide Act 1957 - abnormality of mind which impaired mental responsibility
Diminished responsibility now
four components:
abnormality of mental functioning
arose due to recognised medical condition
abnormality substantially impaired D’s ability to understand or form judgement
this provides explanation of act
Loss of control: pre-2009
pre 2009: provocation
D actually lost self-control in response to V’s provocation (subjective)
D killed in circumstances where a reasonable person would have acted in the same way (objective)
Loss of control now
S54 Coroners and Justice Act 2009
D must show:
They had lost self control
loss of self-control was caused by a qualifying trigger
A person of the defendant’s age and sex with a normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint would have reacted in the same way (objective – Rejmanski 2017)
qualifying triggers of loss of self control
fear of serious violence
justified sense of being seriously wronged by things said or done
Suicide pact
Homicide Act 1957, s4(3):a common agreement between two or more persons having for its object the death of all of them, whether or not each is to take his own life, but nothing done by a person who enters into a suicide pact shall be treated as done by him in pursuance of the pact unless it is done while he has the settled intention of dying in pursuance of the pact
Under s4 of the Homicide Act 1957 if a person kills another ‘in pursuance of a suicide pact’ they shall be guilty of manslaughter NOT murder.
suicide pact example
“A husband and wife agree that they will die together. The plan is that the husband will shoot his wife and then turn the gun on himself. He kills his wife, but a passer-by stops the husband killing himself, or he loses his nerve and cannot do it”
(Herring, 2022 p261)
Involuntary manslaughter offences
Unlawful act manslaughter
Gross negligence manslaughter
Reckless manslaughter
Corporate manslaughter
Unlawful Act manslaughter
must be an ACT not an omission
no requirement that D intends or foresees death, or death was foreseeable to a reasonable person
The act is ‘dangerous’ (Church, 1996):
this is an objective requirement, judged from the perspective of the sober and reasonable bystander (Dawson 1985)
D themselves need not have realised risk of harm.
Likelihood of some harm, not serious harm
The base offence must cause the death of D: (Kennedy No2, 2007)