Actus Reus & Causation (all important points and cases) PDF

Preview

Summary

Actus ReusHas to be a positive act (generally) such as commission, and has to be voluntary (acts caused by spasms, reflex or while sleepwalking do not count as actus reus – these are parts of automatism).Exceptions: Situational crimes, crimes of possession and omission.Situational crimes: Not an act...

Description

Actus Reus Has to be a positive act (generally) such as commission, and has to be voluntary (acts caused by spasms, reflex or while sleepwalking do not count as actus reus – these are parts of automatism). Exceptions: Situational crimes, crimes of possession and omission. Situational crimes: Not an act but simply being in a prohibited environment, e.g. being drunk in a place where it is prohibited to be. Crimes of possession: Being in possession of a prohibited object – controlled drugs, extreme pornography, weapons for use in terrorist activities. Situational crimes and crimes of possession does not necessarily require any wrongdoing. R v Elvin (despite taking reasonable steps, dangerous dog got free and bit someone), charged. Deyemi (believed to be a harmless object but was a gun).

Omission: -

-

-

-

-

The conduct element must be capable of commission by omission: R v Dunn (2015) (caused a child to masturbate D, charged with assault. Acquitted of assault as the act was of the child and not D and assault requires an act of assault by D) Legal duty to act: o Duty arising from Statute: Children and Yound Persons Act 1933 s1, Road Tracffic Act 1988 s.170 o Duty arising from special relationship: Gibbins and Proctor (1918) (child not fed my stepmom, child starved to death) o Assumption of care: R v Stone and Dobinson (1977) (D takes in sick person, doesn’t call nurse or doctor when illness worsens, sick person dies) Breach of contractual duty to act: o R v Pitwood (1902) (Person at level crossing failed to lower the pole, train hits someone and kills the person) o Public position requiring duty: R v Dytham (1979) (On duty cop doesn’t intervene seeing a fight, a person dies in the fight) R v Naughton (2001) (Off duty cop) The harm MUST be caused by omission: Morby (1882) (child had smallpox, father didn’t call doc, father acquitted of murder as it showed that calling a doc would not have yielded a different result) Creating a dangerous situation: R v Miller (1983) (drops cigar which catches fire, does nothing to extinguish it and ignores it, whole house catches fire, charged with arson)

R v Santana-Bermudez (2003) (police asks if D has sharp object on him, says no, police frisks and injures himself in a needle D had)

Causation Factual Causation: ‘But for’ test: But for what D did, would the consequence have occurred? It is just a basic filter to rule out very obvious cases.

Not guilty if the consequence would have happened irrespective of D’s act: Commission: R v White (1910) (D puts cyanide in his mom’s (V) drink, mom dies of heart attack and not cyanide poisoning). Here, V did not die because of D’s action) Omission: R v Morby (1882)

To be a factual cause, D does not need to initiate the chain of events leading to the event, merely accelerating it will suffice. Dyson (1908) (dad beats child suffering from meningitis, dies of injuries, found that he’d have died of meningitis soon, dad still convicted of manslaughter) Direct cause: D shoots V in the head. Indirect case: Mitchell (1983) (D pushes X, X falls on V, V dies)

Legal Causation: D’s act has to be substantial and operative. Besides, the result has to be caused by the act, not while the act was being done.

If we are unable to show both factual and legal causation, there is a break in the chain of causation. Substantial (de minimis principle): For D’s act to be substantial, it needs to be more than something merely trivial. Operative: D’s act doesn’t need not be the sole cause, but if it is one of many causes, that’ll suffice. R v Cheshire (1991) (D shoots V, V taken to hospital, complications with treatment partly due to hospital’s fault, V dies. D still liable as the issue wouldn’t have taken place had D not shot V and the shooting was not merely a trivial cause but a substantial cause in V’s death)

R v Smith (1959) (a soldier (D) stabs another soldier (V), V is dropped twice while being taken to the doctor and he receives negligent treatment there. D still charged with murder as even if it was not the sole cause, it was an operating cause) R v Pagett (1983) (D, to resist arrest, uses his gf as shield and shoots at the police, police fires back and his gf dies. D charged with manslaughter as his action is the legal cause – set in motion a chain of events that led to her death. Not the sole cause, but a cause) R v Jordan (1956) (D stabbed V, V was being treated and was recovering but died of negligent treatment by the hospital. Chain of causation broken as the treatment was so palpably wrong that D’s stabbing was not the reason for death)

Consequence caused by the act, no while performing the act: Galloway (1847): Kid came in front of horse cart and died while D didn’t have reins of the horse in hand. D was driving dangerously but the death couldn’t have been avoided. Thus, acquitted.

Intervening Act: In order to break the chain of causation, an event must be: “…unwarrantable, a new cause which disturbs the sequence of events [and] can be described as either unreasonable or extraneous or extrinsic” (p. 43). Something happening outside the control of the defendant due to an intervening act. Novus Actus Interveniens: 1. Acts of Victim (usually escape): D is liable for foreseeable consequences of his actions. R v Roberts (1972): D sexually assaulted V in a car causing V to jump off. This was foreseeable so D was guilty. Roberts also illustrates the daftness test: did V do something so daft that could not have been foreseen by any reasonable person. R v Williams and Davis (1992): D tried to rob V who was in a moving car and V got scared and jumped off. This was unforeseeable by any reasonable individual and the chain of causation was broken, hence D was acquitted of manslaughter.

Thin Skull Test/ Egg Shell Skull R v Blaue (1975): D stabs V, in the hospital, V needs blood transfusion but denies due to religious beliefs and dies. The defendant must take their victim as they find them and this includes the characteristics and beliefs of the victim and not just their physical condition. Unlike in R v Roberts (1971) 56 Cr App R 95 the victim’s decision was an omission and not a positive act and so the test was not of whether the omission was reasonably foreseeable.

Hayward (1908): D threatened V with death, V had a weak heart and died of a heart attack. D guilty. Holland (1841): D hit V with iron bar, V refused amputation of a finger to prevent tetanus, and he refused and died. D responsible.

Suicide: It usually breaks the chain of causation but if it was in response to a specific and recent unlawful attack, the attack can be cited as a causation. Dhaliwal (2006): D abuses V, V commits suicide. D acquitted of murder as the suicide was not as a result of a specific and recent act. 2. Acts of third parties (usually medical): R v Cheshire (1991) & R v Smith (1959): Chain of causation (COC) not broken R v Jordan (1956): V was getting better but treatment palpably wrong, COC broken R v Malcherek and Steel (1981): D stabs V, very bad condition, put on life support, irreversible brain damages, doctors turn off life support which does not break COC. Rafferty (2007): D beats V and leaves, X and Y drowns V. X and Y’s acts so different that it breaks the causal link. D acquitted. Miscellaneous: Bush v Commonwealth (1880): D attacked V, V taken to hospital, V died of scarlet fever contracted in the hospital, COC broken, D not liable. Corbett (1996): D beats V and leaves V unconscious beside the road, V stumbles on to the road and gets hit. Here, COC not broken as the risk of it happening was created by D’s act....