what I want to do in this lesson is move on to the next major Topic in the subject of the criminal law we're going to be talking about specific criminal offenses for the next few weeks and months focusing first on the various different homicide offenses that exist now we're going to only spend one lesson essentially on each of these offenses because they're relatively easy to understand and they're relatively um non-controversial in the way in which the law is applied we'll begin in this lesson by talking about murder and then we'll move on to the various different varieties of manslaughter which exist in the next few lessons so homicide offenses is something that we're going to outline as well in this in this lesson essentially what it means to commit a homicide and the sort of class of offenses which exists so in answering that question then uh sometimes people like to conflate the idea of homicide with the idea of murder this is a false comparison they are not the same thing uh and the reason why they're not the same thing is because homicide is a more General classification it refers simply to the killing of an individual um this may be lawful or unlawful and it could be murder but it could also be other kinds of unlawful activities and by lawful and unlawful there are circumstances where the killing of another individual I.E the committing of homicide is actually lawful for example in the context of an armed conflict when shooting a against a lawful combatant this is something of a this would be a lawful uh means of committing homicide in terms of unlawful there are other kinds of unlawful activities which could be considered homicide which are not murder for example things like manslaughter things like genocide uh things like assisting suicide these are all examples of homicide related acts um which are are no which are not the same as murder but which are still unlawful so murder specifically refers to an actual um the the the the killing of another individual um with what is known as malice of forth thought so we're going to get to Lord Ko's actual definition of murder in a second but what should be noted is that there is no murder act there is no statute on the books that is outlined very clearly what murder is and what murder isn't instead murder is a common law offense and this means that it is not specifically attached to a statute or statutary provision and so the result of which is we get the definition first elucidated by shwood kooch in the 17th century and ultimately this definition is fundamentally a definition of murder which still applies to this day the language has been updated and we've sort of made various different changes to to to how it is described in modern parlance but in terms of the key components and in terms of the key elements of murder they are all present in the 17th century definition as cited by Sir Edward KO so ultimately the the uh definition of murder is cited as follows from 1797 it says the following it says that murder is when a man of sound memory and age and the age of discretion sorry unlawfully kth within any country of the realm any reasonable creature in R Natura under the king's peace with malice of forethought either expressed by the party or implied by law so as the party wounded or hurt Etc die of the wound or hurt Etc within a year and a day after the same so some parts of this definition are uh as you can probably understand uh pretty redundant in terms of the language and in terms of the uh elements that are required but there are elements of this definition which is very very very much um applicable to today's um modern understanding age of discretion of course means the age at which criminal liability arises um a man of sound memory of course rules out the idea of a defense of um diminished responsibility Andor defense of insanity the idea of a reasonable creature refers to a a natural person which again obviously is controversial um in some circumstances under the king's peace refers to the idea that we shouldn't be um prosecu shooting individuals for murder in in Wartime and this obviously falls into the concept of lawful homicide under uh the the the killing of a of a of a lawful combatant in an armed conflict and then the concept of malice a thorf either expressed by the party or implied by law uh relates to the men's rare of the offense of murder so all of these things are elements which are still required um and they give us both an actus race and men's rare of the offense the actus Rees for murder is relatively easy to understand we if we look back at the coch definition we can find the actus Rees elements we see that the defendant will cause the victim a reasonable p a reasonable creature sorry I.E a person to die to kth this is done under the king's peace again excluding the unlawful sorry the lawful killing of individuals during an armed conflict when it comes to the men men's rare of the offense again equally in the coke definition we can find the men's rare the traditional language is to kill with quote malice a forethought today this is essentially translated to an intention to kill or to cause Grievous bodily harm so when somebody commits murder it doesn't necessarily have to be a requirement that the individual wanted to actually kill to end that person's life you can be convicted of murder if you intend to cause Grievous bodily harm to an individual but in doing so you resultantly murder them as a result you end up killing them as a result let's begin to talk about some of the cases then that illustrate some of these points in 1985 we have the case of crown versus Maloney in this case we see a stepfather and a stepson Maloney uh and they had a very close Rel relationship with each other and they decided to both enter into a shooting contest looking to see who could draw their guns quicker now they did so while they were drunk so obviously probably not wise uh suggestion to do so even sober never mind while you're drunk in doing so The Stepfather was accidentally shot and killed the questions that we have to ask therefore is um whether or not the actions by the defendant was an in an intention to kill or to cause Grievous bodily harm to his father-in-law given the fact that this was a shooting contest looking to see not who can shoot each other but Sue can draw their guns quicker we can come to a conclusion that it's probably the case that they were not um intending to kill or cause Grievous bodily harm as a result of which their murder conviction was overturned and reduced to that of manslaughter the House of Lords would also clarify the issue of intent when it comes to the criminal law they say that in order for a person to be convicted of murder they must have an intent to kill or to cause Grievous bodily harm the Lords also made the argument that foresight of the consequences in and of themselves without a direct intention may not be sufficient for a conviction of murder so even if you had some reasonable foresight that one of the consequences of the events that is taking place is the death of another individual the killing of another individual if that still exist without the prerequisite intention to kill or cause Grievous bodily harm then this means that that still is not sufficient in and of itself for a conviction of murder it was also made clear that the key consideration here should be the defendant's purpose and whether there was an intention to bring about a specific result which would give rise to criminal liability so a good way of showing or trying to show intent to kill or cause Grievous bodily harm is seeing what the specific result which was ultimately intended to have been achieved um actually was if the specific result was the death of a victim or the severe injury of a victim which would constitute Grievous bodily harm then this can be sufficient for showing an intent to kill or cause Grievous bodily harm in the case of AR Maloney however this wasn't the intent there was never an intent on the part of the parties to actually kill each other they were trying to see who could draw their guns quicker and owing to their uh General um negligence and owing also into their General drunkenness um they were uh unfortunately um in a situation where one would kill the other in 1975 we also have the case of of hyim and the director of public prosecution the defendant in this case was in a relationship with a man um when this relationship ended the defendant became increasingly jealous of her ex's new partner and fiance she would then pour uh petrol into her new partner's letter box and light it on fire set it on fire the resulting fire would end up getting out of control killing the new partners two young children in the house the defendant was then tried for murder now the issues here was the question of whether or not de could be convicted of murder since she did not have an intent to kill the two children when performing said act well the jury could convict for murder but the House of Lords would and also would uphold the conviction should I say now why is that the case given to the fact that it may not have been the case that the individual in question had the intent to kill the two young children why was it the case that the House of Lords still upheld the conviction well the jury could convict of murder and the House of Lords would uphold the conviction they would uphold the conviction for a number of reasons all hinging on whether or not the defendant uh knew or not uh the probable uh the probability should I say that the children were in the house at the time of the act and it was that foresight which as stated previously was not in N of itself sufficient but still very much a key consideration that was important for making a determination as to the guilt of the defendant in this case the case of crown versus woen from 1999 also illustrates another example you see in a fit of rage in this case the defendant would kill his three-month-old Son by throwing him into a hard surface at trial the judge directed The Jury to convict if they were in the mind or of the mind that D realized the quote substantial risk in the action which was committed by the defend dependant it was held that the conviction was to be reduced to manslaughter the reason for this was this idea of substantial risk it was incorrect for the trial judge to direct the jury um by suggesting that the standard was a standard of quote whether or not there was a substantial risk and whether or not the defendant realized there was a substantial risk because what this does in taking the ordinary language of the phrase substantial risk is confuse the concept of intention with the concept of recklessness and in doing so you are confusing the concept of murder with the concept of manslaughter and so one of the key delineations between murder and manslaughter is a delineation between intent and recklessness and so as a result of which um uh having a conviction of of murder for a uh for a jury Direction which would be better suited in the context of manslaughter is one that essentially confuses the situation the the jury must instead ask three questions relating to the issue at hand the first question being is the result for which criminal liability exists one which was virtually certain um a certain consequence of the actions of the defendant the second question is did the defendant uh did defendant know that his actions would be virtually certain um as a consequence of be a certain virtually certain consequent should I say and then finally the last question is given the evidence would the jury be satisfied with finding the intent of the defendant finally then I want to talk about the concept of coincidence or Coincidence of men's rare and actus Rees because it's not just enough that you have to satisfy both the actus Rees and the men's rare of an offense but it is also the case that they have to coincide with one another um in most cases of the criminal law the murder the the concept of murder will require a coincidence of the actor's rares and the men's rare it doesn't mean that they have to to occur at the exact same time but just that there is a continual act that is taking place such that this coincidence is satisfied now one of the challenges to this is the case of thebo M from 1954 in this case the defendant had intended to kill the victim by hitting them on the head and had done so they had hit them on the head with the intent to kill them in fact what had actually happened was that they hadn't killed them by hitting them on the head but they had only knocked them out now when the defendant had then rolled the victim off a cliff um the defendant believed that at the time the victim was dead because he believed that by hitting him on the head he had killed him it was only then that the victim would actually die from his injuries and exposure at the bottom of said Cliff now the argument that was presented by the defendant here is that there could not be a conviction of murder since there wasn't a coincidence of actus R and men's ryer at the time of the attack at the time of actually hitting the victim on the head there was the prerequisite men's Ray for murder because the defendant had intended to kill the victim but there wasn't the actus Rees because in doing so the victim hadn't actually died but then when the victim did eventually die owing to exposure and and injuries from falling off the cliff there was the actus Rees but there was no men's Ry at the time and so arguably it is the case that there was a lack of coincidence which would result in a lack of murder charge it was held however that this argument would be rejected suggesting that you cannot divide a case like this up into a separate series of Acts instead what actually happened was the entire series of events uh in their entirety uh represented uh one continuing act allowing for the prerequisite Coincidence of actus Rees with the men's rare of the offense welcome back everybody to criminal law in this video what we're going to do is move on from looking at the first of the major homicide offenses that exists in English criminal law and start to talk about the next of these homicide offenses specifically the crime of manslaughter now manslaughter is a little bit more complicated than the crime of murder because there are various different kinds of manslaughter and different ways in which manslaughter may or may not be justified and so as a result of this we're going to spend quite a few lessons talking about man Slaughter in more detail we will be focusing in this lesson on the concept of voluntary manslaughter the first kind of manslaughter and the first method by which you can show voluntary manslaughter this is by way of diminished responsibility we'll talk about a number of cases involving diminished responsibility in that regard so voluntary manslaughter the idea behind voluntary manslaughter pertains to an individual who will have the uh men's Rey and actus Reus for the crime of murder so they have all of the prerequisite requirements to show that they have in fact murdered an individual but their liability will be limited in a number of different ways and in this case when you talk about voluntary manslaughter their liability is limited by the fact that they are able to satisfy a partial defense to the murder charges and so when there is a partial defense and it is there are a number of different ways in which you can justify partial defense um when looking at voluntary manslaughter one of which is of course diminish responsibility which we'll get to in a second this doesn't absolve the individual of the of of any liability it is not a full defense for the crime that is committed instead it is a partial defense which limits the liability it takes liability from murder all the way down to manslaughter now the rationale for having this kind of system in place relates to the statutory requirements that exist in relation to sentencing so when it comes to sentencing that a judge has to do when it comes to murder cases there is a mandatory life sentence this is a minimum uh for a murder case so the at the very very least an individual who is found guilty of murder will have to um serve a life sentence as a minimum however when it comes to cases of voluntary manslaughter or manslaughter more generally the concept of a life sentence isn't the minimum it is the maximum that is placed on the defendant and so as a result of this by being able to essentially satisfy a partial defense either through things like loss of control or even through diminished responsibility which is going to be the topic of this lesson what the defendant is able to do or at least what the uh what the judge is able to do is have a certain amount of discretion in relation to sentencing because if it was murder and they were found guilty of murder there is nothing a judge can do other than a mandatory life sentence now there are mitigating and and um there are mitigating circumstances essentially um to maybe adjust the sentence itself but it would still have to be a life sentence in addition to this when we talk about the case of manslaughter a life sentence is possible for a manslaughter case but it can only ever be the maximum sentence that exists so we can show voluntary manslaughter I.E where we have a number of different elements that could relate to the crime of murder but limit uh limitation liability sorry is limited by the fact that we have a partial defense through one of three defenses you have diminished responsibility which is the subject of this lesson you have loss of control which will be the subject of the next lesson and you also have the idea of voluntary manslaughter through something known as a suicide pact we're not going to spend much if any time looking at the third of these CU it's a very Niche reference um if you want us to go through and look at this in more detail then leave a comment down below but for for now at least the structure of these lessons won't include the latter of these three because for the most part you only really have to know about diminish responsibility and loss of control so let's think about diminish responsibility what it means and how it actually works the concept of dimin this responsibility is actually outlined and defined in statute specifically section 52 of the coroners and Justice Act of 2009 what section 52 says is the following it says that a person D the defendant who kills or is party to the killing of another is not to be convicted of murder if the defendant was suffering from an abnormality of mental functioning which arose from a recognized medical condition substantially impairs the defendant ability to do one or more of the things mentioned in subsection a 1 a should I say and finally provides an explanation for the defendants acts and omissions in doing or being party to the killing this is what diminish responsibility tells us essentially it is a type of Defense which relates to the abnormality of mental functioning now it's not necessarily the defense of insanity because the defense of insanity is more of a full defense def rather than dimin responsibility which is a partial defense so it is an abnormality of mental functioning there are certain requirements that have to be provided you have to have a recognized medical condition in a lot of cases the involving medical conditions or mental conditions as I say and psychiatric conditions it has to be recognized so I if we're talking about and shifting over into the civil law we look at the law of talk for example uh psychiatric harm as the result of negligent action has to be recognized psychiatric conditions similarly in the case of criminal law and admin responsibility there is a requirement that it is a recognized medical condition there has to be a substantial impairment the on the part of the defendant and their ability to do one or more of the things which are mentioned in subsection a we'll get to that in a second as I've as we've cited here and then the final part is that given both of these factors the the action itself or the medical condition itself mental condition um has to provide an explanation for the defendants Acts or emissions so the things that are mentioned in subsection a are as follows one a should I say are as follows they are those things are to understand the nature of the defendant's conduct to form a rational judgment to exercise self control and then finally 1B says that for the purposes of subsection 1 C I.E providing an explanation for the defendants Acts or emissions an abnormality of mental functioning provides an explanation for the defendant's conduct if it causes or is significantly contributory is a significantly contributory Factor uh in causing the defendant to carry out that conduct so the medical recognized mental condition medical condition has to substantially impair the defendant's ability to either understand the nature of their own conduct in the killing or being parted to killing to form a rational judgment when it comes to decisions relating to killing another individual or to exercise self-control this is what responsibility tells us and how we structure the the defense of diminished responsibility to reduce liability from that of murder to that of manslaughter so from this one can derive the concept as having a number of factors which contributes to the partial defense we have to have an abnormality um functioning of uh of mental of our mental state essentially which is caused by a recognized medical condition this abnormality must be a significant factor contributing factor to the actions of the defense defendant and the abnormality must have impaired the defendant in the ways that are specified I.E uh in part 1 a of the provision let's look at some case law then how this has actually been applied by the courts so in the case of crown versus Dows in 2012 we see that the defendant had stabbed a victim the victim in question 60 times causing as you'd imagine the victim to die um not many people are stabbed 60 times and lived um and so as a result of which you have the question of murder and then the question of whether or not we can satisfy this partial defense the defendant claimed he was entitled to the partial defense of diminished responsibility owing to the fact that he was in fact acutely drunk and it was held that um the uh this was not a satisfactory condition for diminish responsibility and so the murder conviction was upheld for the purpose of section 52 the concept of a recognized Medical condition does not include voluntary intoxication it does not satisfy that particular requirement in 2017 we have the case of the crown versus Conroy in this case uh we have a defendant who had both autism spectrum disorder as well as ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and he spent a lot of time in care and had ESS developed as a result of these disorders very violent and sexualized behavior while living in care he would form an obsession with another Resident um who he then intended to have sex with against her will intended to commit sexual offenses against he would strangle her and Tred to ensure that she was unconscious but accidentally instead killed her in the process and so the question therefore um is raised about charging this individual with murder and then thinking about diminish responsibility uh as a partial defense owing to both the autism spectrum disorder and the uh ADHD and whether or not these are a recognized conditions and whether they impaired the defendant's ability to make rational decisions and to have self-control while he was convicted of murder it was recognized that autism spectrum disorder and ADHD were recognized medical conditions for the purpose of diminished responsibility so this this case is actually quite important for recognizing both ADHD and autism as conditions which can form and be part of this General overall spectrum of um of of diminished responsibility um instances where we can have a medical condition that is recognized the question for the jury which would ultimately lead to the conviction was not whether or not autism spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were Radical medic recognized medical conditions but rather whether or not given that they were uh whether or not this was something that infor impaired sorry the defendant's ability to form a rational judgment which is of course the next step when you think about um trying to show uh diminish responsibility under Section 52 of the coroners and Justice act so the issue here is whether or not the defendant is substantially impaired at the time the Act was committed you can't just it can't just be the case that the defendant has has committed murder or should I say has killed an individual okay he's alleged to have committed murder and that they also have a recognized medical condition those two things just being on their own does not mean that you can satisfy diminish responsibility it has to be shown that a they have a recognized medical condition and it was this medical condition that led to them being impaired at the time the Act was being committed and they Define what substantial impairment essentially means when we look at 1 a um subsection 1 a of section 52 now the way in which this operates in practice is that this is a question which is left to the jury on the basis of the evidence presented so this is not necessarily a legal question it's a factual question and the case of R versus gold from 2016 is interesting in looking at this um particular analysis following an argument that was had the defendant would attack his partner with a knife resulting in her to be killed resulting in her death um it was argued at trial um that that he had the defendant himself had a history of mental illness which was supported by multiple pieces of witness testimony so the evidence was given that this defendant had a lot of uh different instances of mental illness and the issue that was had here was whether or not the defendant had been suffering from this psychotic condition these mental illnesses at the time of the stabbing and therefore would satisfy the requirement for diminished responsibility and then therefore have this partial defense because ultimately if an individual is charged with murder and if an individual like in this case attacks his partner with a knife causing her to Die the individual can't just raise the question of whether or not they have a mental illness and say that's enough to satisfy diminish responsibility they have to show that the mental illness was clearly and substantially impairing the defendant's ability um to make rational judgment and have self-control at the time at which the knife was uh used and that the time at which they attack happened so it was uh in defining the term substantial um in this question um was taken to mean having some substance okay and they went on to suggest that what having some substance meant was quote anything more than merely trivial again not particularly helpful but giving us some more ideas as to um how we recognized uh psychiatric illnesses but also how these psychiatric illnesses actually impact decisions that are made and so when we talk about what is substantial as in what is um having a substantial impairment on the defendant's ability to to to to have logical thought and to have self-control is anything that is merely more than merely trivial it has to be a significant factor in the establishment of uh whether or not um it was caused by this medical condition now in 2017 we have the case of crown versus Blackman this is actually a very interesting case because it actually originally began as a murder case and went through the court Marshal as a murder case but then eventually changes uh to a diminish responsibility case so it's a very famous case um the Marine a case for any of you who studies international law um the famous case of Sergeant Alexander Blackman Marine a who was a raw Marine who was caught on camera executing a Taliban Insurgent in Afghanistan when this happens when a clear violation of the Geneva conventions is um not only um reported but is also actually caught on camera um then you have murder cases it becomes a murder trial um when the when the particular soldier in question gets Court marshaled in the video he is heard making derogatory claims to the insurgents um he he he says a number of different things um clearly showing at least on account of the evidence that he was um was acting in a way which was particularly hostile to this Taliban insurgence um I believe he said something a like along the lines of uh off from this Mortal coil as he shoots as he shoots the Taliban Insurgent uh and then he also um follows this up by informing his fellow marines that he quote just violated the Geneva Convention the first crime in my opinion is that he said Geneva Convention not Geneva conventions there's more than one but more than this at the court Marshal um it was originally held that he was convicted of murder he would be convicted of murder as a result of this particular action however it was overturned and substituted for manslaughter by way of diminished responsibility and the reason why this was the case because evidence came to light um that Sergeant Blackman had um been uh diagnosed with or argued to have been impaired by an adjustment disorder which had not been considered by the courts at previous point and then at this point when the um when the when the charge was overturned and reduced to manslaughter he was then let out on the basis of time served finally then let's think about the case of the crown versus Joyce from 2017 um the defendant in this case was a paranoid schizophrenic which is for all accounts a valid medical condition which can be um uh which can be utilized as part of this partial defense and what he had done is taken uh had been taking drugs and then went into a shop took a knife out and killed one of the fellow customers uh it was held that um it was decided that he was able to claim on deminished responsibility on the basis uh that the recognized medical condition not only existed he was a paranoid schizophrenic schizophrenia is a medical Rec a recognized medical condition for this purpose but it also represented the quote Main and significant factor in impairing his mental fortitude this adds a little bit more um to uh the to the question of when we take the medical condition how can we show and what basis of evidence can we show uh that the medical condition was the major cause major representation of the as a factor which causes the lack of mental fortitude which leads to the decision to kill another individual um in this case it was held that because the paranoid schizophrenia represented a quote Main and significant factor in contributing to his lack of mental fortitude this therefore satisfies the requirement for dominish responsibility