Short Answer 11-20

Question 1

11. What is meant by the term “justified?” Provide two examples:

Answer 1

Note that some acts are “justified” even when they result in death. Section 2 provides that when an act is justified the perpetrator is exempt from both criminal and civil liability. Examples of such acts include:

• Homicide committed in self-defence (s48)
• Homicide committed to prevent suicide or commission of an offence which would be likely to cause immediate and serious injury to the person or property of any one (s41).

Question 2

12. Why is attempted murder one of the most difficult offences in the Crimes Act 1961 to prove beyond reasonable doubt?

Answer 2

R v MURPHY When proving an attempt to commit an offence it must be shown that the accused’s intention was to commit the substantive offence. For example, in a case of attempted murder it is necessary for the Crown to establish an actual intent to kill:

Question 3

13. What are the ingredients to accessory after the fact to murder?

Answer 3

Section 176, Crimes Act 1961

Knowing any person to have been party to murder, receives, comforts, assists that person or tampers with or actively suppresses evidence against that person in order to enable him to escape after arrest or to avoid conviction

Question 4

14. Define the term “Suicide Pact”

Answer 4

Section 180(3), Crimes Act 1961

For the purposes of this section the term suicide pact means a common agreement between 2 or more persons having for its object the death of all of them, whether or not each is to take his own life; but nothing done by a person who enters into a suicide pact shall be treated as done by him in pursuance of the pact unless it is done while he has the settled intention of dying in pursuance of the pact.

Question 5

15. Discuss the case Forrest & Forrest and outline the case law

Answer 5

In R v Forrest & Forrest two men were charged with having sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old girl who had run away from Child Welfare custody. At trial the girl produced her birth certificate and gave evidence herself that she was the person named in the certificate. The men successfully appealed their convictions on the grounds that the Crown had not adequately proved the girl’s age. The best evidence possible in the circumstances should be adduced by the prosecution in proof of the victim’s age.

Question 6

16. How do New Zealand Courts deal with a defence of Automatism arising out of taking alcohol and / or drugs?

Answer 6

In New Zealand, the courts are likely to steer a middle course, allowing a defence of automatism arising out of taking alcohol and drugs, to offences of basic intent only. They are likely to disallow the defence where the state of mind is obviously self-induced, the person is blameworthy, and the consequences could have been expected.

Question 7

17. List the ingredients of Section 48 of the Crimes Act 1961 (Self-defence or defence of another).

Answer 7

Everyone is justified in using, in the defence of himself or another, such force as, in the circumstances as he believes them to be, it is reasonable to use.

Question 8

18. What was held in R v Ranger?

Answer 8

If this accused did really think that the lives of herself and her son were in peril because the deceased, enraged after the struggle, might attempt to shoot them with a rifle near at hand, then it would be going too far, we think, to say that the jury could not entertain a reasonable doubt as to whether a pre-emptive strike with a knife would be reasonable force in all the circumstances.

Question 9

19. Provide three guidelines in respect of consent regarding assault.

Answer 9

1. Everyone has a right to consent to a surgical operation.
2. Everyone has a right to consent to the infliction of force not involving bodily harm.
3. No one has a right to consent to their death or injury likely to cause death.
4. No one has a right to consent to bodily harm in such a manner as to amount to a breach of the peace, or in a prize fight or other exhibition calculated to collect together disorderly persons.
5. It is uncertain to what extent any person has a right to consent to their being put in danger of death or bodily harm by the act of another.

Question 10

20. In common law, allegations of culpable homicide have been supported where the offenders have caused death by particular circumstances. Name any four of these circumstances.

Answer 10

• Committing arson
• Giving a child an excessive amount of alcohol to drink
• Placing hot cinders and straw on a drunk person to frighten them
• Supplying heroin to the deceased
• Throwing a large piece of concrete from a motorway over bridge into the path of an approaching car
• Conducting an illegal abortion.