Law 1 AQA Paper Flashcards
Which of the following statements about mens rea is false?
C. Mens rea must be proven in all criminal cases.
Which one of the following statements about gross negligence manslaughter is true?
D. The defendants act or omissions must create a risk of death.
Which one of the following statements about the defence of insanity is true?
C. The ‘disease of the mind’ can result from physical disease.
Which one of the following statements about the use of the golden rule within statutory interpretation is correct?
C. The golden rule enables the judge to avoid an interpretation which would lead to an absurd result.
Which one of following statements about the jurisdiction of lay magistrates is false?
C. Magistrates can try indictable-only offences.
Explain what is meant by the purposive approach to statutory interpretation.
(5 marks)
The purposive approach is a more modern version of the mischief rule. Judges using this approach identify the purpose of the act, they do this by taking into account the whole of the act, and interpret any ambiguous provisions in accordance with this purpose. This gives the judge a significant amount of discretion as they are able to go beyond the wording of the act. This judge is seeking to identify and give effect to parliaments intentions upon passing the act, this is shown in R v Registrar General.
30 mark question.
What is murder and what is the definition?
Murder is a homocide offence that has never been defined by statute. The definition that is used was provided by Lord coke, “the unlawful killing of a reasonable creature in being, under the queens peace, with malice aforethought, express or implied”
30 mark question.
What is meant by “unlawful killing”? And apply.
The D must have factually and legally caused the death of the victim by an act or omission (only by omission if under a duty to act, as in Gibbins and Proctor)
Factual causation - ‘but for Gails actions would Harry have died?’ No so Gail is factual cause.
Legal causation - D must be the operating and substantial cause. This is established by proving an unbroken chain of causation which means there are no NAI (third party intervention, medical intervention, actions of the victim etc). In this case none of these apply as Harry died instantly from Gails actions, so she is the legal cause.
30 mark question.
What is meant by “reasonable creature in being”? And apply
Generally means they are a living human being. There are two states of the human form where it has been disputed; foetus and brain dead. However, neither of these apply so Harry was a reasonable creature in being.
30 mark question.
What is meant by “malice aforethought express or implied”? And apply.
Express malice aforethought means intention to kill. Implied malice aforethought is intention to do GBH, which is confirmed in Vickers.
In this case the fact that Gail used a heavy garden ornament and used it to hit Harry on the head, an area that is particularly vulnerable, indicates an intention to kill.
This intention can be direct or indirect. In this case hurting/killing Harry was Gails direct intention, Mohan, as she ran back in order to harm Harry, wish shows that it was her main wish, want, aim or desire.
30 mark question.
What is loss of control? What act was it introduced by?
Gail could potentially claim the defence of loss of control, which is a partial defence to murder that reduces the conviction to voluntary manslaughter. It was introduced by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
30 mark question.
What is element one of loss of control? Apply.
s54(a) ‘D acts or omissions in doing the killing resulted from the D loss of control’. R v Jewell held that LOC means a loss of ability to act in accordance with considered judgement or a loss of normal powers of reasoning.
Gails loss of control was immediate as she walked away first. However, according to s54(2) it does not matter whether the loss of control is sudden, and this is shown in Ahluwalia. Therefore Gails acts did result from the loss of control.
30 mark question.
What is element two of loss of control? Apply.
s54(b) loss of control had a qualifying trigger. And s55 contains the possible QTs. s55(3) fear of serious violence from the victim against the D or another person. And s55(4) things said or done which (a) constitutes circumstances of an extremely grave character, and (b) caused the D to have a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged.
In this case the anger trigger, s55(4), applies which is objective and uses the reasonable man test. In this case it is unlikely that the reasonable man would consider Harry’s comment to be of an extremely grave as it was intended as a joke and the reasonable man would not have a sense of being seriously wronged by that.
30 mark question.
What is element three of loss of control? Apply.
s54(c) a person of the Ds sex and age, with a normal degree of tolerance and in the circumstances of the D, might have reacted in the same or similar way. Subsection (1)(c) also states that ‘circumstances of the D’ refers to any circumstance other than those while only relevance is that it bears on the D general capacity for tolerance or self restraint.
This means that Gails short temperedness would not be a relevant consideration, as confirmed in R v Rejmanski. In this case a person with a normal degree of tolerance and in Gails circumstances would have continued to walk away and ignore Harry, Gail did not do this which means she cannot rely on this defence and would be charged with murder.
30 mark question.
What is wounding with intent contained in? And what is the definition? Apply
Wounding with intent is contained in s18 of the Offence against the Person Act 1861. A wound has been defined by Jcc v Eisenhower as a ‘break or cut in the continuity of the whole of the skin’. Gail suffered deep cuts to her face and body.
