Manslaughter 2

Question 1

Sentencing for murder vs Manslaughter

Answer 1

Murder: mandatory life sentence
manslaughter: the judge has a discretion up to a maximum of life imprisonment.

Question 2

Voluntary manslaughter

Answer 2

When the actus reus and mens rea are present but also satisfies the elements of the partial defence that reduces her liability to manslaughter

Question 3

Involuntary manslaughter

Answer 3

When the actus reus is present but not the mens rea for murder, but becaomes liable for manslaughter because her conduct and mens rea satisfy the elements of a lesser involuntary mansalughter.

Question 4

LOC is in what statute?

Answer 4

S54 and 55 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.

Question 5

Why is LOC a thing?

Answer 5

So that where D kills with the intention for murder, D’s culpability is lower when she does so in circumstances of exceptional antagonism and is overwhelmed by a violent passion likely to have affected others in her position.

Question 6

What steps to take in LOC?

Answer 6

1) Actus reus and mens rea for murder?
(LOC)
2) D must not have acted in a considered desire for revenge.
3) D must have lost self control

Question 7

Is loss of self control subjective or objective?

Answer 7

subjective

Question 8

Where is ‘loss of self control defined’?

Answer 8

In CA Jewell

“the loss of the ability to act in accordance with considered judgment or a loss of normal powers of reasoning”.

Question 9

Requirement for sudden and temporary loss of self control?

Answer 9

No unlike in provocation.

Question 10

Where does it state that a long delay between provocation and reason implies that the trigger has not caused a loss of self control?

Answer 10

2009 Explanatory notes

Question 11

2 qualifying triggers of LOC

Answer 11

1) Fear of serious violence (s55(3))

2) Things said or done

Question 12

Fear of serious violence trigger

Requirements

Answer 12

1) Subjective requirement
2) Debates as to whether intoxicated beliefs are valid: alongside provocation it is likely.
3) cannot act in a way so that D may end up killing V. Where D has manipulated the circumstances

Question 13

Dawes and Ors

LOSC TRIGGER

Answer 13

D and V were both romantically involved with the same woman. D broke into V’s house to steal and when V returned, D beat and killed him.

Held: “did not provide the appellant with the remotest beginnings of a basis for suggesting that he had a justifiable sense of being wronged”

Question 14

Clinton

LOSC TRIGGER

Answer 14

Wide definition of what constitutes sexual infidelity. Including overhearing sexual conversations.

Mr Clinton had been provoked by his wife’s taunt that he would not have the fortitude to commit suicide. But this alone would hardly stand as objective provocation. A normal person communally situated in Britain would not kill merely because he was taunted about a threat to commit suicide. Can the suicide taunts be combined with an expressly excluded non-qualifying trigger such as sexual infidelity to form a single qualifying trigger? The answer is ‘no’. The suicide taunts would have to stand on their own as a form of objective provocation.

D killed V when V informed him that she was having an affair, she went into detail. She also taunted him about his previous failed attempts to commit suicide. CA held: where sexual infidelity is not the sole trigger said or done, it should be allowed to go to the jury alongside.

Question 15

A person of normal tolerance and self-restraint might have reacted similarly

LOC

Answer 15

Objective requiremnt

1) It is not necessary that a normal person would have reacted in a similar way, only that one might have (lowering the standard).
2) even if a normal person might have lost control, you must still look at the way it was done, e.g. if D lost control in a brutal attack, in a manner which a normal person would never do, then she may fall outside the defence.

Question 16

Asmelash

Answer 16

Voluntary intoxication is not a matter taken into account by the jury when considering whether D exercised ordinary self-control. Moreover, the fact that D was suffering from chronic alcoholism is not (unless v taunts him) a matter to be taken into account.

The question is whether a person of D’s sex and age with a normal degree of tolerance and restraint in the same circumstances, unaffected by alcohol would not have reacted in the same or similar situation. D can qualify for LOSC even if he was drunk as long as someone else who is sober would have too.

Question 17

UAM

Lowe CA

Answer 17

the base offence for UAM has to be an act rather than an omission

This probably will not survive future appellate decisions.

Question 18

R v Scarlett

Answer 18

If D has a defence to the base offence then here is no unlawful act which to construct liability.

Question 19

Watson

Answer 19

The base offence does not need to be directed at V.

Question 20

Church

UAM dangerous test

Answer 20

the unlawful act must be such that all sober and reasonable people would inevitable recognise that it must subject the other person to, at least, the risk of some harm resulting, albeit not serious harm.

Question 21

UAM requirements

Answer 21

1) Unlawful act

2) base offence must be dangerous (Objective)

Question 22

Watson

Answer 22

D burglarled V’s house and V died of a stress induced heart attack. In this case, the risk of harm was foreseeable. Exception is special knowledge.

Question 23

Dawson

Answer 23

D attempted to rob a station using an imitation fun. V died of a heart attack, he was young and protected by bullet proof glass. Held: direction was wrong to include facts that were known to the jury but would not have been apparent to a reasonable person in D’s shoes at the time of attack.

Question 24

GNM requirements

Answer 24

1) Duty of care
2) Breach of duty
3) Causing death
4) Grossly negligent

Question 25

Wacker

GNM

Answer 25

D smuggled 60 illegal immigrants into the UK. D shut the air vent and they died. Held: although criminal venture between D and Victims would undermind any duty of care in civil law this is not the case in criminal law.

Question 26

Which can be commited by acts and omission?

GNM or UAM

Answer 26

Only GNM.

UAM - Lowe does not allow omissions.

Question 27

Bowyer

Answer 27

The defendant is a burglar in house of victim. D claims that he lost self control when V came home catching him in the act and make comments about D’s girlfriend. Held: this did not prove the defendant with “the remotest beginnings” of a defence. If it was opposite way round, maybe combination of burglar and comments would be enough. Law commission gave an example of a rape victim who was taunted about their ordeal and kills person taunting them. Or where D suggests to V, survivor of massacre that the massacre was justified.

Question 28

Stinger

LOSC

Answer 28

Why that case is controversial it because it seems to be saying that if a result is so obvious and a virtual certainty to an ordinary purpose then we can assume that the defendant must have seen is a virtual certainty as well and so there is evidence from which a jury can find intention. That cannot be a correct statement of the law because it is completely ignores the second question in the Woollin test which is a subjective question.

Question 29

Mohammed

LOSC

Answer 29

Justified sense of being seriously wronged.

D, a muslim, killed his daughter because she had a sexual relationship before marriage. He cannot be said to have a justifiable sense of being wronged, even though he believed he was.

Question 30

R v Stingel

LOSC

Answer 30

stalker case, the sexual infidelity is in the stalker’s mind only; it is not real as he is not in a relationship with the person who he thinks is being unfaithful to him. If V has never been in a relationship with the stalker, then she does not commit sexual infidelity by engaging in sexual relations with her own lover.

Question 31

Ahluwalia

Answer 31

Pre 2009 act defence of provocation, there was a futher requirement that D’s loss of self control had to be sudden and temporary, this was criticised for being gender bias, men are more likely to react immediately, woman may react later after a slow burn period.

Now by removing the sudden and temporary requirement, it gives woman a better chance.