Unlawful Act Manslaughter

• Involuntary Manslaughter -

  Unlawful Act Manslaughter

  Form of homicide where the def. has caused death but does not satisfy the mens rea of murder.

  Maximum of life imprisonment
• Unlawful Act Manslaughter – Key Elements

  The act must be

  Unlawful

  Cause the death

  The defendant must have the mens rea for the unlawful act
• Actus Reus for unlawful act manslaughter

  •Must be a criminal act

  Lamb (1967)

  L and a friend were messing around with a loaded gun. They did not realise that if you pull the trigger it will move the bullet round.

  L pointed gun at friend and pulled the trigger. Friend died.

  As the friend did not fear any violence there was no unlawful act of assault.

   
• Khan and Khan

  Two brothers supplied drugs to a prostitute who took them and went into a coma.

  The brothers just left her to die.
• Dangerous Act

  Church – test

  Is an objective test:

  Would a sober, reasonable person foresee some harm might result from the defendants' acts?  If yes, act is judged to be dangerous.

  It is sufficient that the act may cause injury.
• •JM & SM (2012)

  JM and SM had a fight with a bouncer who died from internal bleeding.

  CA stated that you do not have to foresee a specific type of harm just ‘some harm’.

  The dangerousness of the act is judged from the viewpoint of a reasonable bystander.
• •Goodfellow (1986)

  Set fire to his council flat so he would be rehoused.  His family died as a result. He was convicted of unlawful and dangerous act manslaughter.

  This established that the dangerous act need not be aimed at the victim.
• Unlawful act must have caused the death

  Usual rules of causation apply.

  Factual causation – but for test – White

  White tried to poison his mother but she died of a heart attack before it took effect.

  White was only guilty of attempted murder, not murder as his actions did not cause her death
• Legal causation

  De minimis – unlawful act must have been substantial cause of death

  Cato

  Victim had prepared the syringe which Cato had then injected.  As a result Cato was convicted as his acts were more than a minimal cause of death.
• Thin skull

  Take your victim as you find them  - Blaue

  Blaue’s victim refused a life-saving blood transfusion for religious reasons.

  This did not break the chain as Blaue had to take his victim as he found them.
• Novus actus

  the possible intervening acts that could break the chain:

  • Negligent medical treatment (only break chain if ‘palpably wrong’ as in Jordan)
  • Victim’s own acts (only break the chain is unforeseeable as in Williams)
  • Victim’s self-neglect/suicide (generally will break the chain unless foreseeable – Wallace)
  • Third party act (will only break the chain if unforeseeable)
• There is no liability for unlawful act manslaughter where the def. supplies and/or prepares drugs for injecting another who overdoses and dies, as happened in Kennedy No2 (2007).
• Mens Rea of unlawful act manslaughter

  Def. will require the mens rea of the

   unlawful and dangerous act.

  It is not necessary to prove that the def. foresaw harm from their act.
• Newbury and Jones


  2 teenage boys threw a paving stone onto a railway line as a train was coming. The guard was killed.

  HL’s – no need for the defendants to have foreseen any harm from their act.  The defendants were therefore convicted on the basis that their act was unlawful and dangerous.
• Note - Transferred malice also applies to unlawful act manslaughter:
• Mitchell (1983)

  M was in the queue at a post office and pushed an old man who fell onto an old woman who died from her injuries.

  M was found guilty of unlawful act manslaughter using transferred malice.