Law - Fatal Offences (MURDER)

• Murder


  A common law offence with a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment
• Lord Coke: 'The unlawful killing of a reasonable creature in being under the King's [or Queen's] Peace with malice aforethought, express or implied'
• Murder (simplified definition)


  Unlawfully causing the death of a human being with intention to either kill or cause serious injury
• Key elements of murder

  • Unlawful killing (AR)
  • Human being (AR)
  • Queen's Peace (AR)
  • Any country of the realm (AR)
  • Malice aforethought (MR)
• Unlawful killing


  The killing can be by an act or an omission
• Unlawful killing by omission

  • Gibbins & Proctor (1918) - parents' failure to feed their daughter who starved to death
• Factual causation


  But for D's conduct, V would not have died
• Legal causation


  D's act or omission was a more than minimal cause of V's death
• It is sometimes lawful to kill in self-defence or for doctors to discontinue treatment in exceptional cases
• In Re A (Conjoined Twins) (2000) it was lawful for doctors to operate on conjoined twins to save one, knowing it would end the life of the other
• Human being


  This excludes a foetus or a person who is brain dead
• Victims not considered human beings

  • A-G's Reference (No.3 of 1994) - a foetus killed in the womb
  • Malcherek (1981) - persons with no brain stem activity
• Queen's Peace


  This excludes killing an enemy in battle when the country is at war, but enemy soldiers who have been taken prisoner or have surrendered are protected
• Killings not under the Queen's Peace

  • Blackman (2017) - killing an enemy combatant after they were seriously injured and no longer a threat
• Within any country of the realm includes killing a person anywhere in the United Kingdom, and exceptionally a British citizen can be tried in English courts for a murder committed overseas
• Malice aforethought


  Express malice aforethought means intention to kill, implied malice aforethought means intention to cause serious harm
• "Malice" here has its older meaning of "intention" and not its more modern meaning of spite or ill-will
• "Aforethought" does not mean there is premeditation, merely that the intention to kill (or do GBH) occurs alongside D's conduct
• Intention to cause GBH (serious injury) is sufficient for murder
• Intention to cause GBH

  • Vickers (1957) - D struck V with several blows during a burglary, V died
• Subjective test for intention

  The jury must decide that D intended death or serious injury, based on what D thought, not what the reasonable person would think
• Direct intent


  D's aim, purpose or objective
• Indirect (oblique) intent


  D realised the consequence was virtually certain
• Intention and foresight of consequences


  Foresight of a consequence as a virtual certainty is only evidence from which a jury may find intention
• Indirect intent


  • Matthews & Alleyne (2003) - Ds pushed V from a bridge into a fast-flowing river, knowing he couldn't swim
• Transferred malice may also be relevant in murder
• Murder checklist


  • Actus Reus: 1. Unlawful killing, 2. Human being, 3. Queen's Peace, 4. Any country of the realm
  • Mens Rea: 5. Malice aforethought (intent to kill or cause serious injury)
• Transferred malice


  D intends to commit a crime against A but actually commits the same offence against B
• Transferred malice


  • Latimer (1886) - D aimed a blow at a man but hit a woman instead
  • Gnango (2011) - D participated in a gang shootout where a passerby was killed
• D's mens rea cannot be transferred if the eventual crime committed is different to the one intended
• Mens rea not transferred

  • Pembliton (1874) - D threw a stone at V but missed and smashed a window instead
• If D does not have a specific victim in mind, their mens rea is held to apply to the actual victim