Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
17 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Law of Duress in Ireland |
Common law defence |
|
People (AG) v Whelan |
Leading Irish case |
|
3 elements (as per Whelan) |
There must be a: 2. Threat of death or serious personal violence 3. which cause one's will to be overborn |
|
R v Hurley and Murray (AUS) |
Good terminology. Threat must be: Present, continuing, imminent and impending, hanging over you like a cloud, also describes person of ordinary firmness. Would all people react in the same way to the threat. How would we expect people to react, standard of firmness? Also talked about safe retreat from situation, but safe from who's point of view? |
|
R v Graham (ENG) |
Family of 2 men, 1 woman. Men decides to kill her and strangles her with phone cord. One claims duress, court confirmed 'would the reasonable man have joined in?' |
|
Abdul Hussain |
Airplane hijacked and diverted to Stansted. People aboard Shia Muslims from Iraq. Left regime due to danger of faith to avoid death. First fled to Sudan but sent back. So to escape, hijacked plane flying from Sudan to Jordan. Wanted to claim asylum in UK. Imminent threat? CoA: Imminence a requirement but concept may be perceived differently, up to jury to decide. Geographic distance may be a factor in deciding the imminence of the threat but may no automatically make defence unavailable. |
|
Genuine but unreasonable fear of threat? |
No Irish Authority. |
|
Nature of the threat |
Baker (Threat of psychological harm not enough) |
|
Threats to whom |
R v Hurley and Murray (third party may ground the defence, de facto wife here) Love Thy Neighbour-principle |
|
Opportunity to escape |
Will really overborn if able to escape? R v Hudson & Tyler (2 woman accused, living in bad part of town, witnessed crime and told police. Called to trial and claimed memory lapse as scared of accused family. Charged with purgery. Prosecution argued not imminent threat as court room full of police officers. Court took view that one has to look at how world actually works. D has to take bus back to where accused's family lives. Imminent may not work here. Very practical judgment. Two very young girls. |
|
Duress and murder |
AG v Whelan (defence inapplicable to murder) DPP for NI v Lynch (defence open for aiding murder which proves kind of condusing in IE as all accomplices may be convicted of murder) |
|
Duress claimed in organised crime |
# If court permitted defence here, court would permiss the people society least want to be able to use the defence to rely on it |
|
R v Fitzpatrick |
Accused 19 y/o, joined IRA as civil war was coming. Assisted with armed robbery which killed post office employee. Court held duress never available for organised crime |
|
R v Calderwood |
Person in gang argued he didn't have a chance but to join as grew up in the area. Court held even if true, could never grant duress in such circumstances |
|
Harmer |
Caught with lot of cocaine, in debt to dealer. Court held becoming in debt to dealer voluntary act so no duresss |
|
Doctrine of marital coercion |
# Old CL presumption that wife only committed crime due to husband |
|
R v Ryan |
Can. SC draws line between duress and self-defence. Arguesduress, as hired hitmanas husband threatened her and their child. Not allowed. Husband never said, I’m goingto hit you unless you hired a hitman, husband never told wife to commit acrime. Showsreluctance of the courts to allow duress as a defence |