INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER Elements of Substantive Criminal Law Involuntary Manslaughter

INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER

Elements of Substantive Criminal Law

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Aims and Objectives

• By the end of the session the student will be able to:• Explain the two different forms of involuntary manslaughter and their

component parts.• Explain reckless manslaughter.• Evaluate the reform proposals for involuntary manslaughter.• Apply the principles learnt during the session to given scenarios.

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• There are two forms of involuntary manslaughter:

• Manslaughter by unlawful and dangerous act (otherwise known as constructive manslaughter).

• Gross negligence manslaughter.

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Manslaughter by Unlawful and Dangerous Act

• To prove the actus reus of this offence there must be:

• An act.• The act must be unlawful. • The unlawful act must have caused the death.• The unlawful act must also be dangerous.

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• The offence has to be committed by an act – an omission is not sufficient.• Think of an example of when this could occur?• Lowe (1973)

• The defendant’s neglect of his son led to his death. The Court of Appeal held that even if the omission is deliberate, this type of manslaughter cannot be committed by an omission.

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• The act must be unlawful- a crime torts are not enough

• Franklin (1883)• The act must also be a criminal offence.• The defendant threw a crate off Brighton pier that hit a swimmer

below causing their death. The act was considered by the courts to be a civil tort of trespass so could not lead to a conviction of manslaughter by unlawful and dangerous act. (He ended up being convicted of gross negligent manslaughter.)

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• Sometimes the unlawful act is not always easy to find. But you have to prove the elements for a crime the AR and the MR

• Lamb (1967)• The defendant and victim were playing with a revolver that had 2

bullets in but neither were opposite the firing pin. Neither realised that the barrel would spin when the trigger was pulled. As the victim had not been in fear, then no assault had occurred and the defendant was not liable.

• Crimes of negligence are not enough- see gross negligence instead

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• The act must be dangerous.

• R –v- Church (1966)• An act is dangerous if it was one which “all sober and reasonable

people would inevitably recognise must subject the other person to, at least, the risk of some harm resulting therefrom, albeit not serious harm”.

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• R -v- Dawson (1985)• The defendants had tried to rob a garage with masks on, carrying a

pickaxe handle and imitation gun. The 60 year old attendant had a severe heart condition. He pressed the alarm and the defendants ran off. Shortly after the police arrived, the attendant died of a heart attack. The Court held that as the defendants didn’t know about the attendant’s heart condition, the act was not dangerous within the definition in Church.

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• R -v- Watson (1989)• The defendants burgled the house of a frail, 87 year old man who

consequently died from a heart attack. The Court said that the act of burglary could become dangerous as soon as the old man’s frailty became known to the defendants.

• The defendants’ conviction was actually quashed on appeal as it couldn’t definitively be proved that the burglary caused the heart attack.

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Manslaughter by Unlawful and Dangerous Act• If every assault were to be seen as automatically dangerous-

this type of manslaughter would be very wide. For that reason, any assault must pose the additional risk of danger to the particular victim in the specific circumstances.

• In Carey 2006 an apparently healthy 15 year old girl died from a heart attack after her and her friends had been confronted and she was punched by a gang of youths.

• AC held that the cause of death had been a heart attack and there was no connection between the punch and the heart attack. And that any assessment of danger should include the victims characteristics as could be objectively observed. As there was no reason to suppose she would be victim to a heart attack the D was therefore acquitted.

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• The men’s rea of this offence is the same as the original unlawful act, i.e. if it started with an assault then the men’s rea is intention or subjective recklessness.

• This offence is criticised as it is very serious yet the men’s rea is very easy to prove. Someone can be convicted of manslaughter by unlawful and dangerous act for a common assault that would only usually attract a maximum of 6 months imprisonment or a fine. The offence only requires harm but not serious harm.

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• When looking at whether the unlawful act caused the death, the same rules of causation apply as for murder.

• Goodfellow (1986) • The act does not need to be directed at the victim.• The concept of transferred malice applies.

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• There are problems with causation when the defendant has supplied the victim with an illegal drug.

• Find the facts of the following cases and comment on the outcomes:• Kennedy (1999)

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GROSS NEGLIGENCE MANSLAUGHTER

• Negligence is a civil law concept• Donoghue -v- Stevenson (1932)

• To prove negligence• The defendant must owe a duty of care to the victim• The defendant must have breached that duty• The breach must have caused the harm

• When civil law concepts cross over into criminal law, there are inevitable problems.

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Gross negligence manslaughter requires proof of the following:• 1 Conduct• 2- breach of duty3- creation of a risk of death by the breach of

the duty of care• 4 The conduct causes death• 5-Culpability to make it gross negligence

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• Can be committed by an act or an omission.

• A duty of care must be owed by the defendant to the victim and the courts have established that a duty is owed in a range of situations:• Adomako (1994) – anaesthetist to patient.• Singh (1999) – landlord to tenant.• Wacker (2002) – lorry driver to the people he was smuggling into the

country!

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• Just as the civil tort of negligence, criminal negligence requires the duty to have been breached.

• The breach must have caused the death and the same tests for causation as for murder apply here.

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• For the negligence to become criminal, it must be gross.

• ‘Gross’ is defined in Bateman (1925) as being negligence that is so gross that it demands punishment as a crime rather than merely the payment of compensation.

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• R -v- Adomako (1994).• Adomako was an anaesthetist. He didn’t realise that the patient’s

oxygen tube had come out for several minutes. The patient suffered brain damage and died a few months later. Expert anaesthetists giving evidence at his trial said that they would have noticed that the tube had come out within about 15 seconds. He was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter.

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• In Adomako, the Court approved the test for gross as set out in Bateman.• The question of whether the negligence is so gross is one for the jury.• The jury has to decide whether the action should be regarded as a crime

or a civil wrong (i.e. a tort):• “The jury will have to consider whether the extent to which the

defendant’s conduct departed from the proper standard of care incumbent upon him, involving as it must have done a risk of death to the patient, was such that it should be judged as criminal.” Lord MacKay in Adomako.

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Task• Use the cases of Khan 1998, Ruffel 2003 and Gemma Evans to

discuss the confusion as to the definition of a duty of care.

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• Although previous cases have not required there to be a risk of death for the defendant to be convicted, this matter has now been settled:• Misra and Srivastava (2004).• A risk of death is required and not merely a risk to health and welfare.

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RECKLESS MANSLAUGHTER• Before the Adomako case, there was another form of manslaughter

known as reckless manslaughter which arose following the Caldwell (1982) case i.e. based on an objective test.

• The existence of this type of manslaughter was confirmed in Seymour (1983).

• The case was overruled in Adomako which indicates that the courts prefer the subjective form of manslaughter by gross negligence

• Lidar (2000).

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TASK

• Look in your textbook and find details of the problems with the involuntary manslaughter offences and the reforms that have been suggested by the Law Commission.

• With a partner, make brief notes on these to add to your work.• Also with your partner, go through all of your notes on involuntary manslaughter

and construct a diagram with all the relevant details that you can use as a revision aid.

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Documents

INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER Elements of Substantive Criminal Law Involuntary Manslaughter