Fatal Offences

Fatal Offences

1. Murder

   • Definition: the unlawful killing of a human being, under the Queens peace, with malice aforethought, express or implied.
   • Murder is a common law offence and so is not defined in an Act of Parliament.
   • Actus Reus: to unlawfully cause a persons death.
     • Some killings are lawful, like war or self defence. So the killing must have been unlawful and the defendant must be responsible for the actual death. If it cannot be proved that the defendant caused the death then you do not have the actus reas of murder.
   • Mens Rea: malice aforethought, meaning intent to kill or cause GBH.
     • This is what sepeartes Murder and Manslaughter, the Mens Rea. Either an intent to kill (express malice) or an intent to cause GBH (implied malice), will be enough for a murder conviction.

2. Manslaughter

   • There are two main types: voluntary and involuntary.
     • Definition: Voluntary- where, on a murder charge, a partial defence has been accepted. Involuntary- where there was no intent to kill or cause serious injury.
       • A manslaughter conviction means a judge may give a discretionary life sentence, but a lesser sentence is often given.
   • Voluntary Manslaughter
     • A defendant may plead on one of the partial defences, found in the Homocide Act 1957: the two main defences are diminshed responsibilty and provocation.
     • Diminished responsibility: Homocide Act 1957 s2 - It relies on evidence that at the time of the killing the defendant was: suffering from an abnormality of mind resuting from a specific cause, this substantially impaired his mental responsibilty for the killing
       • 1. Abnormality of mind - a state of mind different from the ordinary human that a reasonable man would term it abnormal. The jury decides from the evidence if their mind was abnormal during the killing; e.g. paranoid personality disorder. 2. From a specific cause - abnormal mind must be caused by: disease - of the body or brain, injury, inherent cause- all forms of mental illness that are not due to disease, injury, drugs or drink or arrested mental development - learning disability. 3. Substantial impairment of mental responsibilty - the effect of the abnormality must be substantially impairs mental responsibilty. Substantial is more than trivial, but less than total and the jury to decides whether the abnormality meant the defendant was substantially less responsible for his actions than the ordianry person.
   • Involuntary Manslaughter