Law of Homicide

Question 1

Lawful homicide categories.

Answer 1

Accidental homicide, homicide that does not occur under the Queen’s peace (aka during wartime) and suicide.

Question 2

Unlawful homicide categories.

Answer 2

Murder, manslaughter (voluntary, involuntary and corporate), offences ancillary to murder, complicity in suicide and suicide pacts, infanticide, child destruction and unlawful abortion, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Question 3

European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) Article 2(1).

Answer 3

Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.

Question 4

European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) Article 2(2).

Answer 4

Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary: a. in defence of any person from unlawful violence; b. in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained; c. in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection.

Question 5

Murder.

Answer 5

Subject to three exceptions, the crime of murder is committed where a person of sound mind and discretion (i.e. sane) unlawfully kills (i.e. not self-defence or other justified killing) any reasonable creature (human being) in being (born alive and breathing through its own lungs) under the Queen’s Peace with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm (GBH).

Question 6

Murder: the age of discretion.

Answer 6

The age at which a person is considered by law to have sufficient knowledge to be held responsible for certain acts or competent to exercise certain powers. Generally over the age of nine years.

Question 7

Sir Edward Coke’s definition of murder.

Answer 7

“Murder is when a man of sound memory, and of the age of discretion, unlawfully killeth within any country of the realm any reasonable creature in rerum natura under the King’s peace, with malice aforethought, either expressed by the party or implied by law, so as the party wounded, or hurt, etc. die of the wound or hurt, etc. within a year and a day after the same.”

Question 8

Abolishment of “Within a year and a day”.

Answer 8

The year and a day rule was abolished by the Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act 1996.

Question 9

Act or omission.

Answer 9

In the criminal law, an omission, or failure to act, will constitute an actus reus and give rise to liability only when the law imposes a duty to act and the defendant is in breach of that duty. An act, or voluntary / involuntary bodily movement, can constitute an actus reus and give rise to liability.

Question 10

Homicide law applies.

Answer 10

Anywhere if the accused is British. On a UK-flagged ship at sea or in the rivers of a foreign territory, or on a foreign ship in UK territorial waters (S 2 Territorial Waters Jurisdiction Act 1878). On a UK aircraft (S 92 Civil Aviation Act 1982) or on a foreign aircraft if the next scheduled landing is in the UK (Civil Aviation (Amendment) Act 1996).

Question 11

Reasonable creature in rerum natura.

Answer 11

Any living human being. In rerum natura is Latin for ‘In the nature of things; in existence’.

Question 12

‘Being’.

Answer 12

Courts have held that an infant should have breathed after birth and should have an independent circulation. R v Brain (1834) 6 C&P 349 “it is not essential that it should have breathed at the time it was killed, as many children are born alive and yet do not breathe for some time after their birth”

Question 13

Manslaughter: battery before birth, death after birth.

Answer 13

Attorney-General’s Reference (No 3 of 1994) [1996] Crim LR 268 CA; [1997] 3 All ER 936 HL A pregnant woman was stabbed. She recovered from her injuries and delivered a premature baby who died as a result of the stabbing. It is plain that it was unlawful as it was done with the intention of causing her injury. As the defendant intended to commit the act, all the ingredients necessary for mens rea in regard to the crime of manslaughter were committed, irrespective of who was the ultimate victim of it.

Question 14

“Under the Queen’s peace”.

Answer 14

During a time when the country is at peace.

Question 15

The mens rea of Murder.

Question 16

Murder versus Manslaughter.

Answer 16

Unlawful killing with malice aforethought = Murder.
Unlawful Killing without malice aforethought = Manslaughter.

Question 17

Mens rea. Malice aforethought.

Answer 17

Malice aforethought means an intention to kill any person; or an intention to cause grievous bodily harm to any person. R v Moloney [1985]1 All ER 1035.

Question 18

Direct and oblique intention / mens rea.

Answer 18

A result is intended when it is the actor’s purpose to cause it (Direct Intention). A court or jury may also find that result is intended, though it is not the actor’s purpose to cause it, when the result is a virtually certain consequence of that act, and the actor knows that it is a virtually certain consequence (Oblique Intention).

Question 19

“A year and a day.”

Answer 19

Abolished by Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act 1996. Remains in place for acts committed before 17 June 1996. The Attorney-General’s consent is required if death occurs more than 3 years after act or if D has been convicted of an offence in relation to the same circumstances.

Question 20

Re A(children) [2000] 4 All ER 961.

Answer 20

Re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) [2001] 2 WLR 480 is a Court of Appeal decision on the separation of conjoined twins. The case raised several legal, ethical and religious dilemmas including whether it would be permissible to kill one of the children to save the other, and whether it was permissible to act against the wishes of the twins’ parents.

At first instance, Mr Justice Johnson was left to decide the case without any direct precedents to guide him but reasoned by analogy with Airedale NHS Trust v Blandwhere it was declared acceptable to remove life support. Johnson ruled that separation would not be murder but a case of “passive euthanasia” in which food and hydration would be withdrawn.

The Court of Appeal rejected this analysis but the three judges who presided over the case gave very different legal reasoning. Lord Justice Alan Ward invoked the concept of self-defence suggesting that “If Jodie could speak she would surely protest, Stop it, Mary, you’re killing me.” Lord Justice Brooke relied upon R v Dudley and Stephensand invoked necessity as a defence. Lord Justice Robert Walker focused upon the intention of the surgeons in concluding that surgery could go ahead.

Question 21

Manslaughter categories.

Answer 21

Voluntary and Involuntary Manslaughter.

Question 22

Voluntary Manslaughter.