murder

• murder is a result crime
• the definition of murder is given by Judge Coke in the 17th century as the unlawful killing of a reasonable person in being under the king's peace with malice aforethought, express or implied.

  maximum sentence is life imprisonment + it is an indictable offence
• AR = the unlawful killing of a reasonable person in being under the king's peace. the D must commit an unlawful killing which can be through a voluntary act + an omission. a failure to act will only be an offence if the D was under a duty to act - R v Gibbins and Proctor
• the death of V must be unlawful, it would be unlawful if it occurred outside the war and so was under the king's peace. the D must also not be acting in self-defence - R v Beckford

  the killing must also take place within the country of the realm.
• the V must be a reasonable person in being , meaning they had an independent existence and circulation from their mother as in Attorney General's Reference No3 of 1994

  the V will be considered dead if they have suffered irreversible brain stem injury as shown in Malackerk v Steel
• it must be proven that D is the factual and legal cause of V's death.

  factual causation = 'but for' test which requires the prosecution to prove that 'but for' D's actions, the death of V would not have occurred which can be shown in R v Pagett where but for him using his girlfriend as a human shield she would not have died.

  legal causation = D must be more than a minimal cause to the end result which can be seen in R v Kimsey where D made more than a slight or trifling link to the end result
• think skull rule = where D must take his victim as he finds him - R v Blaue in which D could not escape liability even though the V refused to take blood transfusion due to religious reasons
• there are three reasons in which the chain of causation can be broken

  medical negligence = only break the chain if he act is independent of the D's act and in itself 'so potent in causing death that the D's acts are insignificant' - R v Jordan where the V died from an allergic reaction to an antibiotic

  act of a 3rd party = only break the chain if the cat is not reasonably foreseeable - R v Pagett where it was reasonably foreseeable for the police to shoot back
• v's own actions = only break the chain if the act is not reasonably foreseeable - R v Roberts where the chain was not broken when V jumped out of moving car to avoid sexual advances
• MR = malice aforethought, express or implied

  express malice aforethought = intention to kill

  implied malice aforethought = intention to cause GBH as in Vickers where D intended to cause GBH cannot guarantee that death will not follow
• intention can be either directly or oblique

  direct = where the D desires the resulting death or the purpose of his acts are to kill - Mohan the D did everything in his power to bring about the prohibited consequences when he accelerated fast towards the V

  oblique = where D may not foresee the outcome but in acting the way he did, the outcome is virtually certain and the D appreciates it - R v Woolin where the serious harm to the baby was a virtual certainty of D's action
• transferred malice = MR can be transferred from the intended V to the actual V, providing the AR + MR coincide - Latimer where the D hit a lady with a belt instead of the instead V and was guilty of assault against the woman even though he wasn't intended to hit her.
• coincidence rule = part of a series of connected acts

  in situations where the AR comes first and the MR is formed later, the court uses this continuing act principle - Fagan v MPC where the D committed the AR when he drove onto the policeman's foot but formed the MR later when he refused to move his car

  in situations where the MR comes first and then the AR, the court uses the 'one transaction principle' - Thabo Meli where the D formed the MR of murder by beating up the V but the AR was committed later when the body was left exposed after being thrown off a cliff