Homicide-Related Offences

Question 1

S178 - Infanticide

Answer 1

Where a woman causes the death of any child of hers under the age of 10 years in a manner that amounts to culpable homicide.

Where at the time of the offence the balance of her mind was disturbed, by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to that or any other child, or by reason of the effect of lactation, or by reason of any disorder consequent upon childbirth or lactation.

To such an extent that she should not be held fully responsible, she is guilty of
infanticide, and not of murder or manslaughter.

Question 2

Jury Decides on Mothers State of Mind

Answer 2

The prosecution may file charging documents for both infanticide and murder of an infant, and it is up to the jury to decide on the mother’s state of mind.

Question 3

Provision of Necessaries

Answer 3

Concern the duty to provide those things and conditions necessary to sustain life and protect from injury. Death resulting from failure to meet the legal duty to provide the necessities of life and or protection form injury can amount to homicide.

S151 - Duty to provide the necessaries and protect from injury
S152 - Duty of parent or guardian to provide necessaries and protect from injury
S153 - Duty of employers to provide necessaries

Question 4

Vulnerable Adult

Answer 4

“a person unable, by reason of detention, age, sickness, mental impairment, or any other cause, to withdraw himself or herself from the care or charge of another person”.

Vulnerability may be short-lived or temporary. Whether an adult is vulnerable is a matter for objective determination and should not depend on that person’s subjective perception.

Question 5

Necessaries

Answer 5

“Necessaries of life” which encompassed commodities and services necessary to sustain life, such as food, clothing, housing, warmth and medical care.

Question 6

Duty to Protect from Injury

Answer 6

“injury” encompasses not only bodily harm directly caused by other persons but also harm arising from human activities and non-human sources.

Question 7

S154 - Abandoning a Child

Answer 7

Unlawfully abandons or exposes any child under the age of 6 years.

Question 8

Dangerous Acts & Things

Answer 8

S155 - Duty of persons doing dangerous acts
Every one who undertakes (except in case of necessity) to administer surgical or medical treatment, or to do any other lawful act the doing of which is or may be dangerous to life, is under a legal duty to have and to use reasonable knowledge, skill, and care in doing any such act, and is criminally responsible for the consequences of omitting without lawful excuse to discharge that duty.

S156 - Duty of persons in charge of dangerous things
Every one who has in his charge or under his control anything whatever, whether animate or inanimate, or who erects, makes, operates, or maintains anything whatever, which, in the absence of precaution or care, may endanger human life is under a legal duty to take reasonable precautions against and to use reasonable care to avoid such danger, and is criminally responsible for the consequences of omitting without lawful excuse to discharge that duty.

Question 9

S157 - Duty to avoid omissions dangerous to life

Answer 9

Every one who undertakes to do any act the omission to do which is or may be dangerous to life is under a legal duty to do that act, and is criminally responsible for the consequences of omitting without lawful excuse to discharge that duty.

Question 10

S163 - Killing by Influence on the Mind

Answer 10

Wilfully frightening a child under the age of 16 years or a sick person, to kill another by any disorder or disease arising from such influence, except by wilfully frightening any such child as aforesaid or a sick person.

This means that if someone was driven into an extreme anxiety state by work or domestic pressures, but had no previous mental or physical ailment, and committed suicide, the person causing the anxiety would not be culpable for the death.

Question 11

S164 - Acceleration of Death

Answer 11

Every one who by any act or omission causes the death of another person kills that person, although the effect of the bodily injury caused to that person was merely to hasten his death while labouring under some disorder or disease arising from some other cause.

Question 12

S165 - Causing Death that might have been Prevented

Answer 12

Every one who by any act or omission causes the death of another person kills that person, although death from that cause might have been prevented by resorting to proper means.

Preventable Death - Liability depends on the mens rea not on the victim’s subsequent actions.

Question 13

S166 - Causing Injury the treatment of which causes death

Answer 13

Every one who causes to another person any bodily injury, in itself of a dangerous nature, from which death results, kills that person, although the immediate cause of death be treatment, proper or improper, applied in good faith.

Question 14

R v Blaue

Answer 14

Those who use violence must take their victims as they find them.

Question 15

Treatment of Injury is Fatal

Answer 15

Where a person dangerously injures the victim and, as a result, treatment is administered to the victim, and that treatment is the immediate cause of the victim’s death. The person who caused the injury is liable for the injury and its consequences. The degree of that liability will rely on the mens rea element.

Question 16

An injury must remain a substantial cause of the death

Answer 16

In New Zealand under ss165 and 166 of the Crimes Act 1961: the injury must remain a substantial cause of the death which grew from the subsequent effects and risks.

Question 17

S179 - Aiding & Abetting Suicide

Answer 17

(a) Incites, counsels, or procures any person to commit suicide, if that person commits or attempts to commit suicide in consequence thereof; or
(b) Aids or abets any person in the commission of suicide.

Question 18

S180 - Suicide Pact

Answer 18

(1) Every one who in pursuance of a suicide pact kills any other person is guilty of manslaughter and not of murder, and is liable accordingly.
(2) Where 2 or more persons enter into a suicide pact, and in pursuance of it one or more of them kills himself, any survivor is guilty of being a party to a death under a suicide pact contrary to this subsection

Suicide pact means a common agreement between 2 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.

Question 19

Aiding & Abetting

Answer 19

Relate to the actions of the defendant. There is a requirement to “do something” in one of the specified ways in order to assist the suicide of another.

Question 20

Culpability of Another Person

Answer 20

Section 179 makes it an offence for a person (Person A) to assist another person (Person B) to commit suicide without any intention of Person A committing suicide themselves.

Section 180(1) makes it an offence to enter into a suicide pact, and only one person dies as a result of an action by another person.

Section 180(2) makes it an offence for two people to enter into a suicide pact, where they are both responsible for the actions that caused one of their deaths (Person A), and where one person survives (Person B).

Question 21

S181 - Concealing Dead Body of A Child

Answer 21

Who disposes of the dead body of any child in any manner with intent to conceal the fact of its birth, whether the child died before, or during, or after birth.

Intent - concealing the fact of birth may be satisfied even though the birth was known to some people but not others. Thus it will be enough that the intent was to conceal the birth from a particular individual.

Question 22

A child of comparatively recent birth

Answer 22

The provision is evidently intended to refer to a child of comparatively recent birth. The body must be dead when disposed of, although it is not necessary that the body should be found and identified. If the child is alive when disposed of and subsequently dies, it may be murder or manslaughter or, in the case of the mother, infanticide.