Unlawful Killings Flashcards
For a child to be given the protection of the law of homicide, they must be wholly expelled from their mother’s body and be alive.
Poulton
Murder cannot be committed where unlawful injury has been deliberately inflicted to a mother carrying a child where the child is subsequently born alive and then dies as a result of earlier injuries.
AG Reference (No 3 of 1994): a defendant could instead be liable for constructive manslaughter.
What is the test for factual causation?
But for the defendant’s conduct, would the victim’s death have occurred in the way that it did? (White)
Acceleration of death must be ‘significant’, meaning ‘more than negligible’.
Chesire
A defendant’s act need not have been the sole cause, or even the main cause, of death, but simply have contributed significantly to the result.
Pagett
Intentional discontinuation of medical treatment does not prevent the person who inflicted the initial injury from being responsible for the victim’s death.
Malcherek
Where a victim’s death is caused by something other than physically-inflicted injuries, such as a fright-induced heart attack, it is open to the jury to decide whether the defendant has caused the victim’s death.
Watson: in this case, the defendants were convicted of manslaughter because it was foreseen or foreseeable that such an outcome could occur.
Which case involved medical treatment being palpably wrong and thus a subsequent quashing of the defendant’s initial conviction?
Jordan
If at the time of death the original wound is still an operating and substantial cause of death, then the death can be said to be the result albeit that some other cause of death is also operating.
Smith
Only in a case where negligent treatment was so independent of the acts of the defendant and so potent that it rendered their acts insignificant could the law consider the cause of the victim’s death to exclude the defendant’s acts.
Cheshire
The principle of taking your victim as you find them.
Blaue
Example of an application of the principle established in Blaue.
McKechnie
What is the definition of the common law offence of murder?
“The unlawful killing of a reasonable creature in being under the Queen’s peace with malice aforethought” (Coke)
Murder can only be committed by intention to kill or cause GBH.
Moloney
In the case of someone suffering from alcohol dependence syndrome, diminished responsibility does not require the abnormality of mind to be the sole cause of the defendant’s acts. If impairment of responsibility was potentially partly caused by drink and partly caused by underlying abnormality, then provided the abnormality substantially impaired the defendant’s mental responsibility, the defence can be upheld.
Dietschmann
A defence of diminished responsibility is not precluded by a defendant’s voluntary consumption of alcohol. If a defendant had voluntarily consumed alcohol before a fatal act, a jury should focus exclusively on the effect of the alcohol consumed as a direct result of the defendant’s illness and ignore the effect of any alcohol consumed voluntarily.
Wood
Voluntary intoxication from alcohol or other substances which is uncomplicated by alcoholism or dependence cannot be relied upon for a defence of diminished responsibility.
Dowds
The notion of ‘substantial impairment’ is a question for the jury: it must be ‘more than trivial or minimal’.
Lloyd
‘Substantial impairment’ has been held to mean ‘important or weight’.
Golds
Where sexual infidelity is part of the context of other relevant triggers, then evidence relating to it may be relevant when assessing the other possible qualifying triggers.
Clinton
Defendants cannot be guilty of constructive manslaughter if there is no unlawful act.
Lamb
Crimes of negligence will not suffice for constructive manslaughter.
Lowe
The issue in constructive manslaughter is whether there has been an unlawful act, and there is no need for the defendant to foresee or intend the risk of frightening or harming anyone.
DPP v Newbury and Jones
‘Dangerous’ means an act that carries with it some risk of harm to some person, albeit not serious harm.
Church
The test for danger is entirely objective: would the sober and reasonable person think that the act was dangerous?
DPP v Newbury and Jones
Knowledge given to the sober and reasonable person is that which they would have gained had they been present at the scene of the crime and watched the whole act being performed.
Watson
Burglary could amount to an unlawful and dangerous act in the context of constructive manslaughter.
Bristow
A very high degree of negligence is required before the offence of manslaughter by gross negligence is established.
Andrews v DPP
Negligence of the accused in manslaughter by gross negligence must go beyond a mere matter of compensation between subjects and show such a disregard for life and safety of others as to amount to a crime against the State and conduct deserving punishment.
Bateman
What are the five elements of the Adomako test for manslaughter by gross negligence?
(a) A duty of care is owed by the defendant to the victim;
(b) There is a breach of that duty of care;
(c) That was a risk that the defendant’s conduct could cause death;
(d) Evidence that the breach did cause the death of the victim
(e) A jury’s conclusion that the defendant fell so far below the standards of the reasonable person in that situation that they can be labelled as grossly negligent and deserving of criminal punishment.
Ordinary civil law principles of negligence should apply in deciding whether or not a defendant has breached a duty of care owed to a person.
Adomako
One would be liable for failing to act where there was a duty to do so in relation to the general principles concerning omissions.
Khan; example in Evans.
ICR Haulage confirmed the two limitations on a company’s ability to incur liability.
(a) Certain offences, by their very nature, cannot be committed by a company (e.g. rape, burglary, robbery);
(b) A company cannot be convicted of any offence where the only sentence that can be imposed is ‘physical’, i.e. a term of imprisonment.
Which case established the ‘identification principle’?
Tesco Supermarkets Ltd
What does s2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 require?
Employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.
What does Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/3242) require?
Employers to make suitable and sufficient assessment of risks.
The penalty of disqualification of a Director can be achieved under what Act?
s2 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.
Which Act means that the most serious breaches of health and safety rules can now attract custodial sentences of up to two years?
The Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008
Which Act makes an offence committed by a body corporate also the liability of a director, manager or similar officer if the offence was committed with their consent or connivance or was attributable to their neglect?
s37 of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974.
What must a defendant do in order to commit constructive manslaughter?
(a) Do an unlawful act;
(b) Which is dangerous; and
(c) Which causes the victim’s death.
