WS 4 Flashcards
R v Poulton [1832]
- Mother strangled her newborn baby
- Was ruled that a baby must be wholly expelled from the mother’s body, be alive, and have an existence independent of the mother to be considered born
Attorney-General’s Reference (No 3 of 1994)
If subsequently born alive, an unborn baby can be a victim of homicide
Malcherek and Steel [1981]
- Both D’s attacked their V, ended up brain-dead as a result of wounding
- Doctors shut off life support
- Was not an intervening even as injuries were still an operating and substantial cause of death
- Also that the death of the brain = death of the body
R v White [1910]
- D put poison in his mother’s drink in attempt to poison her
- Mother took a few sips, had a heart attack
- But-for test: D was not liable for murder as the poison was not the cause of death
R v Lloyd [1967]
Legal causation: for the impairment to be ‘substantial’, it must be ‘more than trivial’
R v Watson [2018]
- Ds threw a brick in 87-year-old’s house, verbally abused him
- Later died of a heart-attack
- Ruled that same tests of causation apply to non-physical causes of death
Take your victim as you find them
R v Wallace [2018]
- D threw sulphuric acid on her partner, resulting in such extreme damage that he applied, and was granted euthanasia
- Ruled that voluntary euthanasia does not break chain of causation as long as euthanasia falls within range of reasonable responses from V
R v Jordan [1956]
- D stabbed V, who was hospitalised.
- V’s wound had largely healed and died after Doctors gave him antibiotics which he was allergic to twice
- Found that the medical treatment was ‘palpably wrong’ and the initial wound no longer an operating and substantial cause
- No causation
R v Smith [1991]
- V died after being stabbed at an army medical centre and bad treatment
- Would was still an operating and substantial cause
- Therefore, death a result of the wound
R v Cheshire [1991]
- V died after complications arising from a tracheotomy
- D’s conviction upheld, court made it clear that poor medical treatment could only be viewed as intervening when:
‘it was so independent of D’s acts, and itself so potent in causing death, that the jury regard the contribution made by D’s acts as insignificant’
R v McKechnie [1992]
- When V dies as a result of a pre-existing condition which could not be treated due to D’s actions
- D is liable as the decision not to operate was not so independent of the act of the accused that it could be regarded as the cause of death
R v Bleue [1975]
- D stabbed V, a Jehovah’s witness who refused a blood transfusion which would have saved her life
- Take your victim as you find them: not an intervening event
Dietschmann [2003]
An alcoholic D can still rely on the defence of diminished responsibility if D was intoxicated, as long as the jury finds that the act was a result D’s alcohol dependency rather than his intoxication alone.
R v Golds [2016]
Diminished Responsibility: Substantial impairment means ‘important or weighty impairment’.
R v Clinton [2012]
Whilst sexual infidelity itself is not enough for a qualifying trigger, it can be used to provide context for other factors.
