Murder & its Partial Defences

Homicide

  • the killing of another human being

  • encompasses both lawful and unlawful killings

  • unlawful acts of homicide include criminal ofencces such as murder, manslaughter, causing death by dangerous driving and infanticide

  • murder is the most serious offence of homicide


Types of Homicide

  • murder

  • voluntary manslauaghter

  • involuntary manslaughter

The Offences of Unlawful Homicide

  • include: murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter

The Offence of Unlawful Homicide: Murder

  • actus reus: unlawfully causing death of a human being

  • unlawful = killing is unjustifiable (either through self-defence or the defence of necessity)

  • mens rea: intention to kill or cause GBH (with malice afterthought)


The Offence of Unlawful Homicide: Voluntary Manslaughter

  • actus reus of voluntary manslaughter: unlawfully causing the death of a human being

  • mens rea for voluntary manslaughter: intention to kill or cause GBH

  • requires a partial defence, e.g. loss of control, dimished responsibilty, suicide pact or infanticide


The Offence of Unlawful Homicide: Involuntary Manslaughter

  • actus reus of involuntary manslaughter: unlawfully causing the death of a human being

  • mens rea for involuntary manslaughter: NO intention to kill or cause GBH

Murder

  • a common law offence

  • most serious offence in criminal justice system

  • life imprisonment is the mandatory sentence and a ‘tariff’ (the minimum term that the defendant wil continue to serve in prison until their eligible for parole)

  • carries a higher penalty than manslauagahter to relfect the severity of the offence

  • The unlawful killing of a reasonable creature in rerum natura under the Queen’s peace with malice aforethought“ - Sir Edward Coke



Mens Rea

  • “malice aforethought“

  • R v Cunnigham - not a murder case but illustrates mens rea because D does not actually need to pre-plan a murder to be guilty of it

  • DPP v Smith (1961) - need not intend to kill, and intention to do really serious harm to V is enough

Defintion

  • when a defendant unlawfully causes the death of a person with an intention to kill or cause GBH

  • “Murder is when a man of sound memory, and of the age of discretion, unlawfully killeth within any country of the realm any reasonable creature in return natura under the king’s peace, with malice afterthought, either expressed by the party or implied by law, [so as the party wounded, or hurt, etc. die of the wound or hurt, etc. within a year and a day after the same.]“ - Sir Edward Coke


Causes of Death

  • prosecution must prove that the defendant caused the death of the victim

  • usual rules of causation apply prosecution must prove that the defendant was the factual and legal cause of the victim’s death


Reasonable Creature in Being

  • defendant is only guilty of murder is the victim is a reasonable creature (rerum natura = reasonable creature in being)

  • i.e. the victim is a human being capable of being murdered

  • determining whether a victim is a reasonable creature is an issue when they lie on either spectrum of life

  • AG’s ref No3 of1994 (1997) - one does not become a human being until it has taken its first independent breath after birth


Poulton (1832) 5 C & P 329

  • a baby is a reasonable creature in being when the whole body of the child is brought alive into the world

Manslaughter

  • carries a discretionary life sentence (may be convicted of manslaughter may be given a maximum sentence of life imprisonment)


Involuntrary Manslaughter

  • involuntary manslaughter = charges


The Elements of Murder

Determining Liabilty

  • each offence has its own different ingredients

  • these are criteria that decide guilt

  • ALL must be satisfied/true


Actus Reus

  • must cause death of another

  • must take place during the king/queen’s peace (during peacetime)

Mens Rea

  • intention to cause death or cauase grevious bodily harm (Cunningham [1982] AC 566)

  • no fault negligence

  • recklessness


R v Inglis (2011)

  • D deliberately injected her terminally ill son with heroin

  • euthanasia is not lawful and so D was liable for her son’s murder


Airedale NHS Trust v Bland (1993)

  • withdrawal by doctors of life support is not murder


Role of the Partial Defences

Partial Deference

  • partial because if established, reduce murder to manslaughter

  • Homicide Act 1957


Partial Defences

  • loss of control (originally provocation)

  • dimished responsibility

  • sucide pact


Loss of Control

  • Coroners & Justice Act 2009, s 54:

  • (a) Defendant’s acts and omissions in doing or being a party to the killing resulted from D’s loss of self-control

  • (b) the loss of self-control had a qualifying trigger, and

  • (c) a person of D’s sex and age, with a normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint and in the circumstances of D, might haave reacted in the same or in a similar way to D


1. D Must Lose Self-Control

  • Richens [1993] 4 All ER 877

  • need not be sudden: s. 54(2) of thr Coroners & Justice Act 2009

  • is not compatible with someone acting out aconsidered desire for revenge: s54(4)

  • defendant is unable to restrain themself from carrying out their actions



Richens [1993] 4 All ER 977

Facts

  • the defendant, Richens, killed a man who had allegedly raped his girlfriend

  • he claimed that he lost control due to extreme anger upon learning about the assault

  • the trial judge directed the jury that mere loss of temper was insufficient for the defense of provocation

Legal Issue

  • whether loss of self-control must involve a complete inability to restrain oneself, or if an overwhelming emotional reaction could suffice for the defense of provocation

Outcome

  • Court of Appeal ruled that the trial judge’s direction was too strict.

  • It clarified that loss of self-control does not require total inability to restrain oneself but rather an inability to think rationally.

  • The murder conviction was quashed, and a conviction for manslaughter was substituted

Ratio Decidendi

  • established that loss of self-control for provocation does not mean a total loss of physical control.

  • Instead, it means that the defendant was unable to think rationally due to overwhelming emotions.


2. It Must Have a Qualifying Trigger

  • meaning of a “qualifying trigger”

  • (3) D feared serious violence

  • (4) things done or said (a) constituting circumstances of an extremely grave character and (b) giving D a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged

  • (5) a combination of both

  • (6) (a) D can’t rely on a fear of serious violence if they deliberately precipitated it

  • (6)(b) D can’t rely on a sense of beign seriously wronged if he deliberately precipitated it

  • (6)(c) the fact that a thing done or said constituted sexual infidelity is to be disregarded


s.54 (1)(c)

  • (c) a person of D’s sex and age, with a normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint and in the circumstances of D, might have reacted in the same or in a similar way to D.


Diminished Responsibility

  • Coroners & Justice Act 2009, s.52

  • (1) a person (D) who kills or is party to the killing of another is not to be convicted of murder if D was suffering from an abnormality of mental functioning which

  • (a) arose from a recognised medical condition

  • (b) substantially impaired D’s ability to understand the nature of their conduct, form a rational judgement or exercise self-control and

  • (c) provides an explanation for D’s acts and moissions in doing or being a party to the killing


Diminished Responsibility


Medically Recognised Condition

  • alcohol dependency

  • depressive illness

  • long-term care of a terminally ill relative

  • must substantially impaired the defendant’a ability to:

  • understand the their conduct

  • form rational judgement

  • exercise self-control

  • the abnormality of mental functionign which the defendant suffers from must explain the killing