Lecture 6 PDF

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Lecture 6: Homicide III: Involuntary Manslaughter. MAIN POINTS: 1. D may be guilty of a form of involuntary manslaughter where he lacks the mens rea of murder. 2. Unlawful act manslaughter requires proof of 4 elements (DPP v Newbury & Jones [1976]): a. D’s act must be intentional (must be an act, not an omission – Lowe [1973]); b. The act must be unlawful (must be a crime – Franklin [1883]); c. The act must be objectively dangerous (Church [1966]); d. The act must cause death (Kennedy [2007]); But The act need not be directed at the victim (Goodfellow [1986]). 3. In order to establish the offence of gross negligence manslaughter, the prosecution must prove (Adomako [1995]): a. A duty of care; b. A breach of duty; c. The breach caused death; d. The breach was grossly negligent. LECTURE NOTES: ‘Involuntary Manslaughter’ describes unlawful homicide which is committed without malice aforethought. There are three main forms of involuntary manslaughter: 1. Unlawful act manslaughter. 2. Gross negligence manslaughter. 3. Reckless manslaughter. We will only consider unlawful act manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter. 1.1. UNLAWFUL ACT MANSLAUGHTER This is a very wide offence, in that any intentional criminal act which exposes the victim to the risk of some physical harm, viewed objectively, will be manslaughter if death results from said criminal act. A good example of this offence is the case of R v Larkin [1943] 1 All ER 217 CA , where the defendant found his mistress drinking at a party with another man. He returned to the party with a sharp razor and said in his defence that his only intention was to terrify the man, but the mistress, groggy with drink, swayed against him and her throat was cut by accident and she, as a consequence, died. There are four elements of unlawful act manslaughter as confirmed in DPP v Newbury & Jones [1976] 2 WLR 918: 1. D’s act must be intentional (must be an act, not an omission – Lowe [1973]) 2. The act must be unlawful (must be a crime – Franklin [1883]) See also Fenton [1830], R v Lamb [1967] 3 ALL ER 206 CA , Scarlett [1994], and R v Williams [1996] 2 Cr.A.pp.R72. And the following ‘drugs cases’: Cato [1976] 1 WLR 110 CA, Kennedy [1999] Crim LR 65, Dias [2002] 2 Cr App. R, Finlay [2003] EWCA Crim 945, Rodgers [2003] 1 WLR 1374, and R v Kennedy [2007] All ER (D) 247. 3. The act must be objectively dangerous (Church [1966]) See also Dawson [1985] 81 Cr App R 150 CA, Watson [1989] 2 All ER 865 , Ball [1989] Crim LR 730, and R v Gemmell and Richards [2003], 4. The act must cause death (Kennedy [2007]) One last requirement is that the act need not be directed at the victim (Goodfellow [1986]). See also Dalby [1982] 1 All ER 916, and AG's Ref (No 3 of 1994) [1997] 3 All ER 936. We can see that the four elements of the offence were satisfied in Larkin’s [1943] case, namely; 1. D intentionally did an act – Larkin was deliberately flashing the razor to scare his love rival. 2. The act was unlawful – Larkin had no justification or excuse for acting as he did. He was

assaulting the other man in causing him to fear the immediate application of unlawful physical force. 3. The act was dangerous – brandishing a cut-throat razor near other people is exposing them to the risk of some physical harm viewed from an objective observer’s standpoint. Quite clearly in a nightclub, someone, including Larkin, could slip in the vicinity of the upheld razor. 4. The act caused V's death – the mistress of Larkin fell and cut her throat on the razor. The unlawful act of Larkin caused her death. The fact that she was not the intended victim of Larkin’s fear-inducing behaviour was irrelevant. The ‘but for’ test is satisfied. These elements will be further investigated in Lecture 6. 1.2. GROSS NEGLIGENCE MANSLAUGHTER The offence of gross negligence manslaughter is a common law offence dating back to the early nineteenth century. The concepts of negligence (duty of care and breach of it), originate in the civil law of Tort but, whereas a civil action for negligence can be brought for any personal injury including death, the concept of gross negligence in criminal law only applies to manslaughter. A basic definition of negligence is failure to exercise the care a reasonable person would take in a duty situation. However, in the criminal law, since punishment and loss of reputation are at stake, the law insists that before a person can be convicted of manslaughter following a breach of a duty of care, the breach of duty, the negligence, must be gross. In other words, a very serious breach of duty. This important point was made by Lord Hewart in the case of Bateman [1925] 19 Cr.App.R8: “The negligence must go beyond a mere matter of compensation between subjects and show such a disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime against the state and conduct deserving of punishment.” This judgment was approved by the House of Lords in Andrews [1937] AC 576, which was itself approved in the leading modern case on gross negligence manslaughter, which is Adomako [1995] 1 AC 171. In order to establish the offence of gross negligence manslaughter, the prosecution must prove: 1. Duty of care 2. Breach of duty 3. Breach caused death 4. Breach was grossly negligent...