HOMICIDE

Question 1

AR of murder:

Answer 1

Act or Omission e.g. Gibbons vs Proctor (1918)
Unlawful killing
Person (unborn is not a person, brain dead is legally dead)
Queen’s peace - kill in war is not criminal offence

Question 2

MR of Murder

Answer 2

Homicide act 1957 - “killing shall not amount to murder unless done with…malice aforethought”

Cunningham (1982) - this case defined ‘malice aforethought’ as an intention to kill OR an intention to cause grievous bodily harm (where causing death is the result)

Question 3

Direct intention of murder

Answer 3

D intending to produce specific result - moloney 1985

Question 4

Indirect/oblique intention of murder

Answer 4

Woollin (1999)
Even if D did not intend to kill, can still be found guilty if a) Death or GBH was virtually certain consequence
b) D appreciated this was the case

Question 5

murder: sentencing

Answer 5

<1965 - death penalty used
1965< - mandatory life sentence, often get out eventually. life order only for most serious offences

Question 6

Partial defences of voluntary manslaughter

Answer 6

Diminished responsibility
Loss of control
Suicide pact

Question 7

Diminished responsibility pre-2009

Answer 7

s.2 Homicide Act 1957 - abnormality of mind which impaired mental responsibility

Question 8

Diminished responsibility now

Answer 8

four components:
abnormality of mental functioning
arose due to recognised medical condition
abnormality substantially impaired D’s ability to understand or form judgement
this provides explanation of act

Question 9

Loss of control: pre-2009

Answer 9

pre 2009: provocation
D actually lost self-control in response to V’s provocation (subjective)
D killed in circumstances where a reasonable person would have acted in the same way (objective)

Question 10

Loss of control now

Answer 10

S54 Coroners and Justice Act 2009
D must show:

They had lost self control
loss of self-control was caused by a qualifying trigger
A person of the defendant’s age and sex with a normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint would have reacted in the same way (objective – Rejmanski 2017)

Question 11

qualifying triggers of loss of self control

Answer 11

fear of serious violence
justified sense of being seriously wronged by things said or done

Question 12

Suicide pact

Answer 12

Homicide Act 1957, s4(3):a common agreement between two 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

Under s4 of the Homicide Act 1957 if a person kills another ‘in pursuance of a suicide pact’ they shall be guilty of manslaughter NOT murder.

Question 13

suicide pact example

Answer 13

“A husband and wife agree that they will die together. The plan is that the husband will shoot his wife and then turn the gun on himself. He kills his wife, but a passer-by stops the husband killing himself, or he loses his nerve and cannot do it”
(Herring, 2022 p261)

Question 14

Involuntary manslaughter offences

Answer 14

Unlawful act manslaughter
Gross negligence manslaughter
Reckless manslaughter
Corporate manslaughter

Question 15

Unlawful Act manslaughter

Answer 15

must be an ACT not an omission

no requirement that D intends or foresees death, or death was foreseeable to a reasonable person

The act is ‘dangerous’ (Church, 1996):
this is an objective requirement, judged from the perspective of the sober and reasonable bystander (Dawson 1985)
D themselves need not have realised risk of harm.
Likelihood of some harm, not serious harm

The base offence must cause the death of D: (Kennedy No2, 2007)

Question 16

Gross negligence manslaughter

Answer 16

D owed V a duty of care, breached that duty of care, The breach caused the death of the victim, There was a serious & obvious risk of death at the time D breached their duty (not in hindsight), The breach was so gross as to justify criminal conviction (Adamako, 1995)

Question 17

‘serious and obvious risk of death’ case

Answer 17

Key case: R v Rose (2017)

This is an objective test: judged by the standard of ‘reasonable foreseeability’

The Court of Appeal in Rose emphasised that foreseeability had to be assessed at the time of the breach: there could be no appeal to information which was known in hindsight
Eg. in the Rose case they could not rely on information that would have been known had the test been carried out

Question 18

Reckless manslaughter

Answer 18

D will be liable under this offence where they cause V’s death by act or omission and is at least reckless as to causing death or GBH