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LAW - UNIT 4 - D1
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Essay of 7 pages for the course Unit 4 - Unlawful Homicide and Police Powers at PEARSON (USE AS YOU WISH.)
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Muhammed AwaisD1 – Voluntary Manslaughter
In this assignment I will be evaluating voluntary manslaughter which is a defence of murder. There are two parts
I will need to evaluate. Firstly, I will need to evaluate unlawful act manslaughter and then I will need evaluate
gross negligence manslaughter.
Firstly, I will evaluate the mens rea of unlawful act manslaughter, the mens rea is that the defendant will need to
have the mens rea for the un law act which he commits. This is a very risky test as there are a lot of debates
about this issue as some people say that this will need to be reformed and a better test is needed to fully ensure
that the right people end up in prisons. The law commission in 1966 didn’t think that it was appropriate that a
person can be convicted of this manslaughter if he has the mens rea for only assault. It wouldn’t be fair, or it
wouldn’t make sense when the person can be found guilty of manslaughter all because the defendant had the
mens rea for assault. The government replied to this critic saying that anyone who commits the dangerous or
illegal act can be found guilty of the manslaughter. There were a lot of people who didn’t agree with this as it
was still on the strict edge of saying that anyone who commits any unlawful act can be found guilty of
manslaughter and it doesn’t go clear from this idea. Anyone who commits any illegal act may be found guilty of
the manslaughter, so the person doesn’t need to intend or think about if there are any issues which are involved
committing the act which they do. If someone doesn’t foresee that the defendant would die if he commits the
assault or any other illegal act they can still be found guilty of this unlawful act manslaughter through the mens
rea as it suggests that he had the mens rea for the assault. Even if the person doesn’t assume to think about if the
person would die they would still be found guilty of the manslaughter this is due to the mens rea. There is also
more critic to this as the mens rea is the same of the mens rea of civil law. It seems like it has just been taken
from the civil law and has been put into the criminal law. The whole gross negligence manslaughter is based and
is the same as the law which is in the civil law. There have been several attempts to reform the law, but the
government had decided to ditch the new laws which they come up with and we can see why that is the case.
The government had come up with the idea to get rid of the involuntary manslaughter and replace it with two
other laws which will be around the same idea. The government didn’t go ahead with the decision after several
years of planning. So, the mens rea for unlawful act manslaughter states that a person will need to have only the
mens rea of committing the criminal act and the defendant doesn’t need to have the mens rea of the death and he
can still be found guilty of the manslaughter. An advantage of this is that people will hear about this and they
will not think about committing any assault, this would mean that there are less people who have been injured
due to an assault. A person will think once or twice about what the consequence may be of the assault which he
may commit, and it can lead to them getting into serious trouble and this is only down to them committing an
assault, they won’t need to have the mens rea of killing someone they will only need to have the mens rea of
causing an assault and that is enough to send someone for the voluntary manslaughter. So, someone will not
need to have the mens rea of killing another person all they need to have is the mens rea of causing harm via an
assault and they can be found guilty of the voluntary manslaughter. This is a good thing as it discourages people
from causing harm which can lead to the death of another person. So, a person will think twice or more times
before they will commit the offence. This will reduce the amount of assaults which occur. On the other hand, a
disadvantage of the mens rea of voluntary manslaughter is that someone who doesn’t have the intention of
causing death to a person will get the same treatment as the person who wants to cause serious harm to
someone. This will seem as not being fair as the criminals who had the intention to kill someone will be treated
in the same way as someone who assaults someone as a mistake for example if they lose their anger. This shows
how unstable this law is, if someone has the intention of assault or battery and doesn’t have the intention of
murder will still be found guilty of voluntary manslaughter. This shows that there needs to be a reform of the
law so that people can be sentenced accordingly. So, if someone has the mens rea assault they should be getting
done for assault and they shouldn’t be getting sent to prison because they had the intention of causing serious
harm which had led to someone to die. A person shouldn’t have assaulted a person in the first place but if he
does then the court should sentence someone with GBH or ABH, they shouldn’t sentence people who have the
intention of assault to manslaughter as it doesn’t make sense.
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