"In Struggling to define the boundaries of Involuntary Manslaughter the courts have encountered considerable difficulties and the resulting model is not a credit to English Law." - Discuss whether this criticism is justified.

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“In Struggling to define the boundaries of Involuntary Manslaughter the courts have encountered considerable difficulties and the resulting model is not a credit to English Law.”

Discuss whether this criticism is justified.

        Involuntary manslaughter is the crime of killing another person, It uses the Actus Reus of Murder but the Mens Rea is absent therefore the defendant did not intent to cause GBH or kill.  Involuntary Manslaughter applies to two areas of law, Unlawful act manslaughter or Constructive Manslaughter and Gross Negligence manslaughter.  The act of involuntary manslaughter must be unlawful in the criminal sense, generally an omission will not do, as stated in he case of Kahn & Kahn (1998) where the Court of Appeal held that there was no separate category for manslaughter by omission unless the omission was a breach of a duty to act.  The Unlawful act must be a crime as a pose to a civil wrong as in the case of Lamb (1967) where the defendant accidentally shot this friend, two friends were playing with a gun, the defendant pointed the gun at the friend who was taking it as a joke, both men thought the gun would not fire but the defendant pulled the trigger and killed his friend, he was convicted of manslaughter and appealed, the appeal was allowed on the grounds that the defendant had not committed any unlawful act which causes death or assault.

Unlawful Act Manslaughter has several factors comprising of the Act must be both unlawful and dangerous for a person to be liable, the test for this was created in the case of Church (1966) where the defendant made the victim unconscious and upon failing to revive her he threw her into a nearby river where she drowned.  The Defendant was convicted of Manslaughter and appealed on the grounds of misdirection, The Court of Appeal set down the test for dangerousness which was, “The unlawful act must be such as all sober and reasonable people would inevitably recognise must subject, the other person to, at least, the risk of some harm resulting there from albeit not serious harm” this test was confirmed in the case if Newbury & Jones (1976), where the trial judge stated that the test was, “not did the defendant recognise that the act was dangerous, but would all sober and reasonable people recognise it’s danger”.  Larkin (1973) where the defendant whilst at a party pulled a razor on a person and started to verbally abuse the person, the victim was drunk and whilst stumbling about fell onto the razor and as a result her throat got cut and she died, the victim was found guilty of manslaughter, he appealed but it was dismissed the court of appeal held that if the person performs an act which is likely to endanger anyone and the act causes the death or another the defendant will be found guilty of manslaughter.  In the case of Dawson (1986) it was held that the defendant must expose the victim to the risk of some physical harm, shock or pure emotional terror would not suffice, however liability could be inferred if the shock could cause physical injury such as a heart attack.  The test for dangerousness is that of an objective view where the ordinary reasonable person is taken into account not the individual defendant’s actions, as a subjective approach would take into account such as in the case of Watson (1989) where the defendant burgled an elderly man’s house and verbally abused him, the victim was suffering from a serious heart condition and died an hour and a half later.  It was held that the unlawful act lasted throughout the time the victim was on the premises and during that time the defendant must have become aware of the victim’s frailty and age.  The trial judge stated that the “sober and reasonable” bystander was to be endowed with any knowledge that the defendant possessed.  This is a slightly subjective approach, where the jury are directed to take into account the defendant’s knowledge this is contrary to the case of Ball (1989) where it was emphasised that the “sober and reasonable” person could NOT be endowed with any mistaken belief by the defendant.  In this case the defendant fired a gun at the victim thinking his gun contained blanks.  In the more recent case of Kennedy (1999) where the victim had asked the defendant for something to make him sleep.  The defendant prepared a syringe filled with Heroin and passed it to the victim, who injected himself, he died an hour later.  The defendant was convicted of manslaughter and appealed, the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal and stated that by the defendant preparing and handing over the syringe he was aiding the victim which was seen as an unlawful act.

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The second area of Involuntary Manslaughter is Gross Negligence Manslaughter which is defined by Lord Hewitt in the case of Bateman (1925) where he stated that “the negligence of the accused went beyond a mere matter of compensation between the subjects and showed such disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime against the state and conduct deserving of punishment.” Until the case of Adomako (1994) the offence of involuntary manslaughter by Gross negligence did not exist, the defendant would be tried under the Caldwell test and be found guilty of reckless manslaughter.  The case of ...

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