Unlawful Act Manslaughter Flashcards
Unlawful Act Manslaughter Summary Template
1 - Unlawful Act - Crime
2 - Identify Crime - AR +MR APPLY
3 - Act must be dangerous - objective (Church, TM+SM, Larkin)
4 - Act must cause death - factual (Pagett), legal (Smith/Cheshire), chain of causation
5 - Life Imprisonment
UAM AO1 Full Summary Template
Firstly UAM requires an unlawful act which must be a crime. A tort (Franklin), breach of contract or an omission (Lowe) is not enough. Where there is no crime there is no liability (Lamb). APPLY - by doing ____ D has committed the crime of ___ under ____. AR of crime, define terms, apply. MR of initial crime (Newbury and Jones) define intention/recklessness and apply.
The act must be dangerous. An act will be dangerous if a reasonable person would foresee the risk of some physical harm resulting from it (Church). The reasonable person doesn’t need to foresee the particular type of harm V suffers (TM+SM), and as the test is objective, it is irrelevant that D didn’t realise there was any risk of harm (Larkin). APPLY
Finally, the act must cause death. Factual causation - ‘But for’ ______ he would not have died (Pagett). D is also the legal cause, being the ‘operative and substantial cause (Smith) / significant contribution (Cheshire) of Vs death. The chain of causation must remain intact - intervening acts?
