Homicide Flashcards
Coke defines murder as having been committed when?
A person of sound memory and of the age of discretion, unlawfully kills any reasonable creature in rerum natura under the states peace, so that the party wounded or hurt dies within a year and a day after the same
What is the actus reus for murder ?
Unlawfully killing a human being under the queen’s peace
Which persons are included and excluded in the definition of murder exclude?
- foetuses
- ‘monsters’ (grossly deformed babies, excluding Siamese twins)
- brain dead persons
It is not homicide to destroy a baby who is not yet born alive nor to cause it to be stillborn, however if a person is alive, however brief the time left for him and however disabled he may be, that person is protected by law
When does life begin?
The law states a child is born alive when
- its whole body has emerged into the world, and
- it has breathed and lived by reason of breathing through its lungs
The baby must be alive as a distinct individual before it can be murdered
R v POULTON
The jury must be satisfied affirmatively that the whole body was brought into this world; and it is not sufficient that the child had breathed in the progress of birth
- the fact the the child had breathe was not conclusive proof that it had been in a living state after birth
R v BRIAN
A child must actually be wholly in the world in a living state to be subject to the charge of murder
R v ENOCH
To be alive there must be (in addition to breathing) a circulation independent of the mother without deriving any of its living or power of living through any connection with its mother
R v HANDLEY
A foetus is considered to have been ‘born alive’ when it exists as a live child; breathing & living by reasons of its own lungs by reason of its own lungs without connection with its mother. A person is therefore guilty of murder, if either before or after birth they make up their mind that it shall dies and the child being born alive, they with that intent, leaves it to die and it so does
R v REEVES
If a child is killed after it has wholly come forth from the body of the mother, but is still connected with her by means of the umbilical cord, it seems that such killing will be murder
Why can’t the destruction of an unborn child amount to an offense of homicide?
Because a child is not a ‘person’ in law
When can the killing of a child be an offense?
- when there is a willful destruction of child capable of being born alive before it is born
- where the child is born alive and dies wholly or partly from antenatal injuries to the mother or child
When does life end?
When there is Brain Stem Death, i.e where there is the irreversible loss of the capacity for consciousness combined with irreversible loss of the capacity to breathe
Is a PVS patient legally dead?
He is not suffering from brain stem death as he is still capable of breathe unaided by machines and reflects actions
AIREDALE NHS TRUST v BLAND
In law, one in a PVSis still alive… the result of developments in modern medical technology is that doctors no longer associate death with ‘heart death’ and breathing but now accept that death occurs when the brain and in particular the brain stem is ‘destroyed’
Offenses Against the Person Act Chap 11:08 s. 56, 57, 58
Procuring an abortion
Procuring drugs to cause an abortion
Concealment of birth
