Summary
Summary Criminal Law Revision Notes (LAW1003)
- Module
- Criminal Law (LAW1003)
- Institution
- University Of Exeter (UoEX)
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Issue LawHomicide Murder:
- Most serious offence and carries a mandatory life sentence.
Definition:
Old language – ‘A man of sound memory and of the age of discretion
unlawfully killeth within any country of the realm any reasonable
creature in rerum natura under the king’s peace with malice
aforethought express or implied’ Coke 3 Inst 47.
Modern language – D kills V whilst intending to kill or cause GBH.
AR:
- Unlawfully
- Causes death – back to causation rules
- Of a human being
- Under the Queens peace.
MR:
- With malice aforethought, that is, intention to kill or intention
to cause GBH.
- S1 Homicide Act 1957 – Abolished ‘constructive malice’ but
maintained express malice (intention to kill) and implied
malice (intention to cause GBH).
- GBH = really serious harm. (DPP v Smith [1961] AC 290)
- Cunningham [1982] AC 566 – D hit V over the head with a
chair. Did not intend to kill just to cause GBH, conviction
upheld.
What does intent mean in the context of murder?
- A deft can have either direct or indirect intention to kill or to
cause GBH.
Direct Intent:
- Ordinary meaning – ‘Purpose’.
- Moloney [1985] AC 905 Lord Bridge 926: When directing the
jury, the meanings given must be presented in their simplest
form in order to avoid confusion. Therefore, direct intent is
described as the purpose of the defendant’s actions.
Indirect intent:
- Smith v DPP [1961] AC 290 – A man intends natural and
probable consequences of his actions.
- Hyam v DPP [1975] 1 AC 55 – D intends consequences of his
actions when he foresees consequence as highly probable.
- Moloney [1985] 1 AC 905 – Did D foresee consequences as a
natural consequence?
- Hancock and Shankland [1986] AC 455 – Did D foresee the
probable consequence of his actions?
- Nedrick [1986] 1 WLR 1025 – Was death or serious harm a
virtual certainty and did the defendant appreciate that?
- Woolin [1999] 1 AC 82 – affirmed Nedrick – Jury may find
intention if death a virtual certainty and D appreciated that.
This sets out a rule of evidence ‘foresight of consequences as
virtually certain to occur’. The deft must know that the death
that occurred is a virtually certain consequence of their
actions.
,The doctrine of transferred malice:
- What happens if the D intends to kill V1 but ends up killing
V2?
- The original intention is transferred to the new victim, hence
the name ‘transferred malice’. The malice is transferred.
Cases:
Latimer [1886] 17 QBD 359
Gnango [2011] UKSC 59
Do AR and MR need to coincide in time?
- Yes, and this is an absolute rule.
- Thabo Meli [1954] 1 All ER 373
- The courts do find ways around this rule.
- Fagan [1969] 1 QB 439
- Miller [1983] 2 AC 161
Jury questions:
- Did D legally cause V’s death?
- Can intention to kill or cause GBH be inferred?
Voluntary Manslaughter:
- The AR and MR can both be established for murder, but
liability is reduced because of special defences.
- These are:
Loss of Control.
Diminished Responsibility.
Suicide Pact.
- The use of these special defences reduces a conviction to
manslaughter
- These special defences cannot be pleaded in relation to any
other offences. MURDER ONLY.
Loss of Control:
- This replaces the old defence of provocation. This is based on
the objective of the reasonable man. D’s actions need to be
essentially objectively understandable.
- The CA have stated that the case law heritage from
provocation cases is now ‘irrelevant’. In understanding the
new defence, we must look back at the earlier cases.
The rationale:
- This new defence now avoids the mandatory life sentence.
- The idea of provocation can be dated back to the 12th Century.
It can be understood as:
An excuse for killing on the grounds that the killer’s
inflamed emotional state so compromised his ability to
conform his conduct to the demands of reason and law as
to render him substantially less blameworthy for his
conduct OR
, A partial justification, on the ground that the provoked
killing is less wrongful than an unprovoked killing.
SS 54-56 Coroners and Justice Act 2009:
S54 Partial defence to murder: Loss of Control
(1) Where a person kills or is party to the killing of another, D is
not to be convicted of murder if –
(a) D’s acts and omissions in doing or being 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 and
tolerance and self-restraint and in the circumstances of D,
might have reacted in the same or in a similar way to D.
S54(1)(a) Was there a loss of self-control?
Lord Devlin in Duffy [1949] 1 All ER 932 ‘a loss of self-control
rendering the accused so subject to passion as to make him or her not
master of his mind’.
Jewell [2014] EWCA Crim 414, CA approved meaning of Ormerod’s
definition in Smith and Hogan ‘…a loss of ability to act in accordance
with considered judgement or a loss of normal powers of reasoning’.
Subjective assessment – question of fact for the jury – Did D lose
control? In deciding this the greater the period of deliberation, the less
likely it will be that there is a loss of control (Clinton)
BUT the loss of control does not have to be ‘sudden’ S54(2)
D cannot rely on loss of control if he acted in ‘a considered desire for
revenge’ S54(4)
S55(1)(b) Did the loss of control have a qualifying trigger?
S55 (3) Fear of serious violence (fear trigger)
S55 (4) Something said or done which amounted to circumstances of
an extremely grave character and caused the deft to have a justifiable
sense of having been seriously wronged (anger trigger)
S55 (5) Combination of both.
Zebedee [2013] 1 Cr App R (s) 37
Doughty [1986] Crim App R 319
What is not a qualifying trigger?
S55 (6) (b) Something done by D to induce the provocation
S55 (6) (c) sexual infidelity ‘the fact that a thing done or said
constituted to sexual infidelity is disregarded’.
Clinton, Parker and Evans [2012] EWCA Crim 2
S54 (1) (c) – Person of the D’s sex and age with the same amount of
tolerance and self-restraint.
- D’s age and sex (a question of fact)
- Normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint (objective)
- In the circumstances of D (objective)
S54 (3) ‘…in the circumstances of D is a reference to all D’s
circumstances other than those whose only relevance to D’s conduct is
that they bear on D’s general capacity for tolerance and self-restraint.
Age and sex and a normal degree of tolerance and self-control are
control characteristics and only age and sex can be taken into account.
The circumstances of D are gravity characteristics and can be taken
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