Murder Answer Plan

Question 1

1. Identify injury and crime

Answer 1

…. This could potentially amount to murder

Question 2

2. Define the actus reus

Answer 2

The definition of murder comes from the common law as, ‘the unlawful killing of another human being under the queens peace with malice aforethouht’ (sir Edward coke)

Question 3

3. Apply the actus reus

Answer 3

In this case it is self evident that the killing occurred under the queens peace. It is also self evident that v is a human being as they are breathing with their own lungs and are fully expelled from their mothers body (rance). When d “” it was arguably unlawful as it was arguably not in self defence

Question 4

4. Explain causation

Answer 4

We must also establish that v’s injury was caused by d. There are two types of causation; causation in fact (pagett) and causation in law (Jordan).

Question 5

5. Define the mens rea

Answer 5

The mens rea of murder is malice aforethought, which means intention to kill or cause serious harm. The courts established this in vickers (1957) and confirmed in Cunningham (1981) that intention in murder can take two forms; express and implied malice aforethought.
Express is intention to kill
Implied is intention to cause GBH
Also when establishing malice aforethought, d could either have direct or oblique intention.
Direct is d’s main aim or purpose (mohan)
Oblique is defined using the woolin test ‘ if d foresees death or serious harm as a virtual certainty, the courts will generally infer oblique intention’

Question 6

6. General defences

Answer 6

Yes/no

Question 7

7. Conclude and