Homicide(Murder &Manslaughter)

Murder requires the killing to be accompanied by an intention to kill, or

an intention to cause grievous bodily harm. Manslaughter does not.
Example: D launches a savage attack on V with fists and feet. V dies in hospital of his injuries.

Manslaughter does require proof of fault but the nature of that fault varies according to the type of
manslaughter charged.

Reckless manslaughter requires foresight of death or serious injury.

Example: D, wishing to scare V from the neighbourhood, pours petrol through V’s letterbox and sets it
alight. V dies in the resulting fire.

Gross negligence manslaughter requires no foresight, but a very high degree of negligence as to the risk
of death.
Example: D, an anaesthetist, gives V who is undergoing an operation a massive overdose of anaesthetic
having failed to notice a decimal point on the dosage recommended in her anaesthetist’s handbook. V
dies as a result.

Constructive manslaughter requires neither foresight nor even negligence as to the risk of death (or
serious injury). It requires simply the commission of a crime likely to cause harm with the relevant mens
rea for that crime.
Example: D, angry with V, delivers a single punch to V’s chin. V falls over and hits his head on the
pavement. V dies of the injury due to a weakness in his skull.
Same Actus Reus of Murder and Manslaughter (Homicide)

1- A killing
Act & Omission (Murder & Gross Negligence Manslaughter)
Act (Constructive Manslaughter or Unlawful Act Manlaughter)

2- Unlawful Killing
Lawful killing: Accidental or killing in selfdefence(R v Clegg) or Necessity (Re A twins case)
Airedale NHS Trust v Bland In this judgment, permission of the court was sought for the withdrawal of life
saving treatment from a patient. It was held that there is a distinction between withdrawing treatment that may
sustain life in the patient’s best interest and actively administering a drug that might bring about the patient’s
death. The latter would be murder, the former would not.

Unlawful killing : 1- Euthanasia (Euthanasia is the practice of ending the life of a patient to limit the patient's suffering)
Nicklinson (2014) suffered from ‘lockedin-syndrome’ sought a declaration that it would be lawful on
grounds of necessity for his doctors or his wife to terminate his life.
Nicklinson Argument: refusal would be in violation of his human rights and his autonomy.
Held: His claim was rejected. The appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court. The decision was later
affirmed in the European Court of Human Rights case Nicklinson v UK (Admissibility) (2478/15) (2015)
61 EHRR SE7 on the ground that the matter was so morally contentious (controversial) that only Parliament
could properly address it.
Canada Ruling: On February 6, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in Carter v. Canada. It
ruled that section 14 and paragraph 241(b) of the Criminal Code are unconstitutional because they prohibit
physicians from assisting in the consensual death of another person.

United Kingdom criminal law does respect a person’s autonomy to a certain degree
St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust v S [1999] Fam: doctor to perform an emergency caesarean on a woman without
her consent (consent was taken through court (Hogg J) COA held it was unlawful to operate without the consent of V because v
had an absolute right to refuse even if she was pregnant.

………………………. 2- (consensual) dueling (A duel was an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched
weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon rules. During the 17th and 18th centuries, duels were mostly single combats fought with swords, but
beginning in the late 18th century in England, duels were more commonly fought using pistols )

……………………… 3- Mecry Killing Inglis (mother killed his paralysed son)

3- A human victim
The law of criminal homicide protects only living humans. It is not criminal homicide to kill a foetus in
the womb, although this may constitute the separate offence of abortion or child destruction. A criminal
homicide also cannot be charged if the acts are directed against a person already dead. Therefore, two
issues need considering:
1-when does life begin?
2-when does life end?

Rance v Mid Downes Health Authority : A foetus is protected by the Act where it has reached a stage in
it's development where it is capable of living and breathing through its own lungs without any
connection to its mother. It followed that the defendant was not negligent in failing to disclose the
possible abnormality at the scan.

Mensrea of Murder : Intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm(Vickers)

Direct intention: in the context of murder, having death (or grievous bodily harm) as one’s objective in
acting as one did such that, if death (or grievous bodily harm) did not occur, one would consider one’s action a
failure (Duff, 1990)

A killing done intentionally in the heat of the moment is just as much murder as one which has been
planned and premeditated.

An intentional killing is murder if prompted (caused) by compassion (sympathetic pity) as much as if it is

prompted by greed. Inglis [2011]

Simple Direction to Jury by judge : As yourself: Did Defendant intend to kill or cause Victim serious
injury(GBH) ? if yes you must find the accused guilty of muder. Motive and intention are not same.

Oblique Intention (Woolin Direction): Jury is not entitled to find the necessary intention of defendant
for murder unless there is evidence that defendant foresaw the virtually certain result of death or serious injury to
the victim. Direction does not instruct the jury that it is bound to find intention where there is foresight of
certainty, only that it is entitled to. So, jury will decide on common sense considering all circumstances.

Criticism on the crime of Murder

A coldblooded serial killer receives the same sentence as a caring spouse who performs euthanasia on a terminally ill partner,
and the same sentence as someone (as in Illustration 7.5) who, intending only to cause serious injury, causes that person’s
death when others would have survived. Many commentators believe that the intention to cause serious injury should not be
sufficient for murder since it is a form of constructive liability. Read Lord Steyn’s speech in Powell and Daniels
[1999]
 Loss of Self Control (Partial defence to murder)
Test of Loss of self-control under S.54 & S.55 of Coroners and justice Act2009

Defendant will not be convicted for murder but for manslaughter if defendant kills or party to killing of another (Victim)
due to loss of self-control and the loss of self-control (subjective element) was triggered by the fear of serious violence
by the victim to defendant or another identified person, or loss of self-control was triggered by the deeds or words
done or said by victim which led the circumstances to extremely grave character for the defendant and caused
defendants’ justifiable sense of being seriously wronged. Further, it will be assessed whether a person of defendants’ age
and sex, having normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint, in the circumstances of defendant might have done the
same or in a similar way as defendant did. There is restraint regarding the qualified triggers provided in S.55 of Coroners
and justice Act 2009 that defendant cannot use the trigger of fear of violence from victim if he encourage to be said or
done to justify using violence, so defendant’s sense of being seriously wrong will not be justifiable. Moreover, there is
also restraint on defendant to use defence if killing someone is in revenge (Ibram) or because of sexual infidelity (S.55 of
Coroners and justice Act 2009,).

Procedure : When sufficient evidence is produced to invoke the issue regarding defence of loss of self-control under
S.54(1) of Coroners and Justice Act 2009 then jury , in the opinion of judge, assumes that there is defence of loss of self-
control for defendant and defendant may be charged for manslaughter unless prosecution proves otherwise under the
legal burden of beyond the reasonable doubt.

1-Loss of self control

Loss of self control was defined by delving J in Duffy, loss of self-control will be amounted when a person is not his master
of mind, so it does not include the loss of temper but it requires defendant is unable to control himself.

(2)For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), it does not matter whether or not the loss of control was sudden.

(3)In subsection (1)(c) the reference to “the circumstances of D” is a reference to all of D's circumstances other than those whose only relevance to D's

conduct is that they bear on D's general capacity for tolerance or self-restraint.

(4)Subsection (1) does not apply if, in doing or being a party to the killing, D acted in a considered desire for revenge.

(5)On a charge of murder, if sufficient evidence is adduced to raise an issue with respect to the defence under subsection (1), the jury must

assume that the defence is satisfied unless the prosecution proves beyond reasonable doubt that it is not.

(6)For the purposes of subsection (5), sufficient evidence is adduced to raise an issue with respect to the defence if evidence is adduced on which, in the

opinion of the trial judge, a jury, properly directed, could reasonably conclude that the defence might apply.

(7)A person who, but for this section, would be liable to be convicted of murder is liable instead to be convicted of manslaughter.
(8)The fact that one party to a killing is by virtue of this section not liable to be convicted of murder does not affect the question whether the killing
amounted to murder in the case of any other party to it.