The dividing line between the offences of murder and involuntary manslaughter is unacceptably blurred and does not ensure that only the most morally culpable offenders receive the mandatory life sentence. Critically discuss.

Authors Avatar

6078258

Criminal Law Summative Coursework:

The dividing line between the offences of murder and involuntary manslaughter is unacceptably blurred and does not ensure that only the most morally culpable offenders receive the mandatory life sentence.

Critically discuss.        

In English Law, there are two general homicide offences: murder and manslaughter. Together, they cover the various ways in which someone might be at fault in killing.  Homicide is generally defined as the unlawful killing of a human being; there are different offences depending on the mens rea of the defendant and whether there is a special defence available.  It has often been argued however “where the scope of murder is too narrow, the scope of manslaughter is correspondingly too broad”.

Part of the problem is that there is no statutory definition of murder. The accepted definition is taken from Lord Coke, who stated that murder entails ‘unlawfully killing a reasonable person who is in being and under the King’s Peace with malice aforethought, express or implied.’  So, in short, murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence, is committed when someone (“D”) unlawfully kills another person (“V”) with an intention either to kill V or to do V serious harm.

The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind be also guilty". In this context, Actus Reus refers here to the unlawful act. Therefore, where there is an actus rea it must be accompanied by mens rea, or “an intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm” to be considered outright murder.  In cases where it is not clear whether the defendant had such an intention, the jury must consider the evidence available to them.  Hence the more evidence which suggests such an intention, the stronger the inference that he intended to kill. In R v Nedrick the court supplemented the decision in Hancock by suggesting that the jury must be satisfied that D foresaw death or GBH as a ‘virtual certainty’.  This was later reaffirmed in R v Woollin. If, for example, the defendant’s foresight of harm was less than ‘virtual certainty’, “the case would lack intention”.

There are four particular defences that can operate to reduce the charge of murder to that of manslaughter. These are provocation; diminished responsibility; a suicide pact and infanticide. On the other hand, involuntary manslaughter is defined where there is no intention to kill or cause GBH and death is still the outcome. Examples of involuntary manslaughter include an illegal or dangerous act (‘reckless manslaughter’), killing by conduct that was grossly negligent where D owes the victim a duty of care, (‘gross negligence manslaughter’) or killing by conduct taking the form of an unlawful act involving a danger of some harm to the person (‘unlawful act manslaughter’/ ‘constructive manslaughter’), for example, dangerous driving.

Join now!

Constructive manslaughter requires proof that D intentionally committed a dangerous criminal act, which resulted in the death of the victim. In the case of R v Watson, it was aff.  Furthermore, in the case of R v Goodfellow, it was affirmed that the jury should be presented with all the information leading up to the point of the crime, in order to ensure a carefully considered decision. In this regard, it would seem that the dividing lines between the offences of murder and involuntary manslaughter are carefully outlined.

The leading case on gross negligence is R v Adomako where ...

This is a preview of the whole essay