Unlawful act manslaughter Flashcards

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1
Q

Actus Reus

A
  1. D must commit unlawful act
  2. The act must be dangerous
  3. Act must cause V’s death
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2
Q

Mens rea

A

D must have mens rea for unlawful act

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3
Q
  1. The act must be unlawful

R v Stone and Dobinson

A

A failure (omission) will be insufficient for UAM. There must be an ACT.

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4
Q

Franklin

A

Unlawful act must be criminal.

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5
Q

Lamb

A

D must have all elements of unlawful act - AR and MR

Act must be unlawful - any lawful act carried out badly will NOT fall within UAM.

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6
Q
  1. Mens rea for the Unlawful act
A

D only needs MR for unlawful act (do not need to have MR for killing/death)

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7
Q

Newbury v Jones

A

It is not necessary to prove that D foresaw any harm from his act. D only needs MR of the unlawful act.

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8
Q

Mitchell

A

(Used for transferred malice)

Malice (MR) can be transferred from one V to another.

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9
Q
  1. The unlawful act must cause the death
A

Not only must there be an unlawful act, this act must crucially cause V’s death. Both types of causation must therefore be proved.

Factual - But for test (Pagett; White)

Legal - Operative and substantial test (Smith)

Intervening act can break chain of causation:

  1. Victim’s own actions (Williams)
  2. Actions of a third party (Jordan)
  3. Act of God (Tsunami)

Thin skull rule - won’t break chain of causation

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10
Q

Dear

A

Self neglect by V does not break the chain of causation.

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11
Q

Drug cases

A

Difficulty in the area of drug supply - when D provides V with drugs, who self administers, which results in two questions:

  1. Whether D has done the unlawful act
  2. Whether D caused V’s death or whether seld injecting broke chain of causation.
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12
Q

Cato

A

Link between V and D intact as D administers drug to V

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13
Q

Kennedy

A

V breaks link from D by injecting drug on to himself

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14
Q
  1. Unlawful act must be dangerous

Church

A

An act is dangerous if a sober and reasonable person would realise that it carries a risk of (some) physical harm to another person.

Reasonable, sober person must realise act was Dangerous (Test of dangerousness)

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15
Q

Watson

A

Reasonable person would have realised risk of physical harm to V, as V was old and visibly frail - Act is dangerous

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16
Q

R v JM and SM

A

An unlawful act must be dangerous - Reasonable and sober person doesn’t have to foresee the risk of specific harm, only that V would suffer some physical harm

17
Q

Goodfellow

A

Unlawful act can be aimed at property (as long as the sober, reasonable person would realise it carried the risk of some physical harm to a person.

18
Q

Farnon and Ellis

A

D’s lack of knowledge wouldn’t affect his liability as it is the reasonable sober person and not a reasonable person of D’s age that needs to see the risk of physical harm to another person by setting a building on fire.