Murder Flashcards
Actus Reus of murder
“Unlawful killing of a reasonable person who is in being and under the King’s peace” (Coke)
Lawful Killing:
- Killing enemy soldiers in battle
- Advancement of justice
- Self defence (force reasonable and necessary)
Child must be fully expelled from mother’s body and born alive
R v Poulton
Pregnant woman stabbed; child born prematurely and died. Child was not a live person when stabbed and so not murder
AG-Ref (No3 of 1994)
Not necessary for umbilical cord between mother and child to have been cut
R v Reeves
Factual Causation
But for test
R v White
Legal Causation
Consequence must be caused by defendant’s guilty act
R v Dalloway
R v Marchant
Would’ve died even if act done legally = not murder
Legal Causation
Defendant’s act need not be the only cause of the prohibited consequence
R v Benge
Legal Causation
Defendant’s act must be the substantial and operating cause of the prohibited harm
R v Cato - not trifling
R v Kimsey - more than minimal
NAI
Medical negligence - inappropriate and harmful treatment did not break the chain of causation
R v Smith
NAI
Medical negligence - must be ‘so extraordinary as to be independent of the defendant’s act’
R v Cheshire
NAI
Intervention of third parties
R v Pagett - actions of third party must be free, deliberate and informed
NAI
Thin skull rule - victim’s infirmities will not break the chain of causation
R v Hayward
R v Blaue
NAI
Acts of the victim - flight and fright
Is escape foreseeable?
R v Mackie (3 year old ran away from attack - foreseeable)
R v Roberts - is victim’s reaction ‘so daft that no reasonable person could have foreseen it’. Trying to escape sexual advances was foreseeable’
R v Williams & Davis - defendant’s tried to rob kitchhiker at knifepoint; jumping from fast car was unforeseeable as there was no actual violence
Jury will have same knowledge as the defendant had at the time of the act; BUT William & Davis may have extended this to allow the jury to be told of any particular characteristics of the deceased (e.g. depression). This awaits clarification.
NAI
Acts of the victim - refusal of medical treatment
R v Holland - wound was real cause of death, refusal of treatment was not a NAI
confirmed in R v Blaue
NAI
Acts of the victim - suicide
R v Dear - reopening wounds and failing to stop blood flow was not a NAI as he died from original wound
Less clear where injuries have healed, but later suicide - what is the reason for the suicide?
It may be argued that where suicide is reasonably foreseeable (e.g. sportsman becoming paralysed), applying R v Roberts and R v Williams & Davis, that the chain of causation is not broken by the suicide.
But R v Kennedy (person supplying drugs does not cause administration and chain of causation is broken by the injection) casts doubt on this argument
NAI
Natural events
Natural events will only break the chain of causation if they are ‘extraordinary’ and not foreseeable
Mens Rea - murder
Malice aforethought
- Intention to kill - express malice
- Intention to cause GBH - implied malice (R v Vickers)
GBH = Serious harm
R v Saunders
Direct Intent: Result is the reason for the defendant’s actions (subjective)
R v Maloney - intention should be given ordinary meaning
Oblique Intent: the consequence is not the defendant’s purpose but rather a side effect that he accepts as inevitable to his direct intention.
Not available where recklessness is capable of constituting the MR
R v Maloney - it must be a natural consequence of the defendant’s act which he foresaw as a natural consequence; foresight of probability cannot amount to intention.
R v Nedrick - jury cannot infer the necessary intention unless they feel sure that death or GBH was a virtual certainty and the defendant appreciated that such was the case
Test adopted by HL in R v Woolin but jury must find (rather than infer) the necessary intention).
Unclear whether oblique intention is a definition of intention or merely evidence of intention. R v Maloney said it could only be evidence of intention, but much criticised by academics. Draft Criminal Code includes oblique intention in its definition of intention.
Ulterior motives are irrelevant
Chandler v DPP - motive was to encourage government to abandon nuclear weapons, but intention was to immobilise the aircraft, which was illegal.
