Lecture 1- AR Flashcards
Lord Mustill’s definition of murder
It is sufficient to raise a prima facie case of murder (subject to entire or partial excuses such as self-defence or [loss of control]) for it to be proved that the defendant did the act which caused the death intending to kill the victim or to cause him at least grievous bodily harm
Definition Case
Attorney-General’s Reference (No 3 of 1994)
Old definition
“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.” (Coke’s Institutes, 3 Co Inst 47).
Standard of proof
Beyond reasonable doubt
What must be proven for murder? (3)
1.The act (conduct)
2.Intending to kill or cause GBH
3.The absence of a defence
Actus Reus
Requires an omission or voluntary act
Voluntary Act
Requires a voluntary exercise- autonomy or insanity not applicable
Omission
The D may be liable only where a common law duty to act is found
Duties+ Cases
Recognised relationships:
Gibbins and Proctor (1918)- Parental
Adomako [1994]- Medical
Contractual:
Pittwood (1902) 19 TLR 37
Voluntary assumption of responsibility:
R v Stone and Dobinson [1977]
Sinclair, Johnson and Smith [1998] (must be more than “a desultory attempt to be of assistance”.)
Creation of danger:
R v Miller [1983]
R v Evans [2009]
Causation
To prove causation, it must be shown that the D was the factual and legal cause of death
Factual Causation
Would the consequence specified in the actus reus have occurred but for the defendant’s behaviour?
(R v White)
Legal Causation (2 requirements)
1.Cause must be “significant and operating” but not necessarily “substantial”: Smith (1959); Wallace (Berlinah) [2018]
the law says “significant” = more than minimal
2.There is no intervening act which breaks the chain of causation.
Novus actus interveniens (2 requirements)
“The free, deliberate and informed intervention of a second person, who intends to exploit the situation created by the first but is not acting in concert with him, is normally held to relieve the first actor of criminal responsibility.” (Hart and Honore, Causation in Law 1985, p. 326)
(NB the intervention must also render D’s causal contribution no longer “significant and operating”.)
Breaks in the chain of causation
1.The V’s actions (R v Kennedy)
2. Actions of a third party
3. Natural and unpredictable event
Cases in which interventions are not ‘free, deliberate and informed’ (4)
- Constrained acts of third parties.
2.Medical practitioners at work.
3.Reactions of V’s to D’s actions
4.Acts of God
Constrained third party acts
*R v. Pagett (1983)
Where a person, D, is not acting voluntarily, their ‘action’ will not be a novus actus interveniens. Where a person is acting in a way which is justified, their action is not free, voluntary, or informed.
‘As can be seen the Court of Appeal held in Pagett that an act done in the execution of a legal duty (being an act caused by the act of the accused) does not operate as a novus actus interveniens because as a matter of principle such an act cannot be regarded as a voluntary act, independent of the wrongful act of the accused.
Liable medical practitioners
R v Jordan (1956)- Break in the chain
The treatment provided by the hospital was ‘abnormal’, ‘palpably wrong’, or ‘grossly negligent’. It should have been known by the doctor that the victim was intolerant to the antibiotic.
Medical Practitioners- not liable (2 Cases)
R v Smith (1959)
It seems to the court that if at the time of death the original wound is still an operating cause and a substantial cause, then the death can properly be said to be the result of the wound, albeit that some other cause of death is also operating.
Putting it in another way, only if the second cause is so overwhelming as to make the original wound merely part of the history can it be said that the death does not flow from the wound.”
R v Cheshire [1991]
Even if more experienced doctors than those who attended the deceased would have recognised the rare complication in time to have prevented the deceased’s death, that complication was a direct consequence of the appellant’s acts which remained a significant cause of his death.
R v. Wallace (Berlinah) [2018]
the doctors’ (lawful) conduct in carrying out with their hands what he could not carry out with his own was but one link in the chain of events instigated by the defendant and, notwithstanding the intervening act of Mr van Dongen and/or the doctors, the defendant’s conduct could fairly be said to have made a significant contribution to Mr van Dongen’s death.
Victim’s Act
To break the chain of causation:
1.V’s actions constitute a “free, deliberate and informed” intervention
2.AND render D’s past contribution no longer operating and substantial
Victim’s Reaction (Self-administration)
Kennedy (No. 2) [2007] Self-administration
When is it appropriate to find someone guilty of manslaughter where that person has been involved in the supply of a class A controlled drug, which is then freely and voluntarily self-administered by the person to whom it was supplied, and the administration of the drug then causes his death?”
The answer to the certified question is: “In the case of a fully-informed and responsible adult, never”
Omission (Gross-neg)
R v Evans (2009)
For the purposes of gross negligence manslaughter, when a person has created or contributed to the creation of a state of affairs which he knows, or ought reasonably to know, has become life threatening, a consequent duty on him to act by taking reasonable steps to save the other’s life will normally arise.
Reasonable Foreseeability (2)
R v. Roberts (1972)
The test is: Was [the victim’s reaction] the natural result of what the alleged assailant said and did, in the sense that it was something that could reasonably have been foreseen as the consequences of what he was saying or doing?’
- It must be the natural result.
- And reasonably foreseeable considering the D’s actions.
Where it is not foreseeable
Was V’s act so “daft” as to be wholly disproportionate to D’s act? If so, it will break the chain.”
