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21 Cards in this Set
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Quote from Hume on casual homicide |
“When a person kills unintentionally, whois lawfully employed, and neither means bodily harm to anyone, nor has failedin the due degree of care for preventing danger to his neighbour.” |
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What are the three situations in which justifiable homicide can occur? |
1.Aperson required by his job to take a life 2.Aperson killing in circumstances of necessity 3.Aperson killing in self-defence |
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McCluskey v HM Advocate 1989 SLT 175 |
Accused hit another car by driving recklessly, pregnant mother was in the car, this caused her to go into labour. When the child was born it died of injuries sustained in the crash. Accused charged with murder argued that the baby was not alive at the time of the crash. The court said the baby had been alive and no matter when injuries were sustained that was why it died. |
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What is the harvard criteria of death? |
1. Cessationof blood circulation 2. Cessationof breathing 3. Cessationof brain activity |
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Finlayson v HM Advocate 1979 JC 33 |
Accused was drug dealer who gave victim dangerous drug that eventually caused brain death. Accused argued that the only reason the victim fully died was because the life support had been turned off. But it was decided that but for the accused's actions the victim would not have been on life support so he was still liable for culpable homicide. |
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Cawthorne v HM Advocate 1968 JC 32 |
Accused was found guilty of attempted murder because of his mens rea of wicked recklessness. He had fired a loaded weapon into a room he knew to be full of people. |
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HM Advocate v Rutherford 1947 JC 1 |
Accused was walking the victim home through an empty park when the victim supposedly requested that the accused strangle her with his tie. The accused tried to say this consent made the murder legal however the courts disagreed. Consent is not a defence to murder. |
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What are the three types of culpable homicide? |
1. Voluntary culpable homicide 2. Unlawful act culpable homicide 3. Involuntary culpable homicide |
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What is voluntary culpable homicide? |
Otherwise known as "mitigated murder" this is when someone has in essence committed murder but this charge is reduced due to the presence of the defence of provocation or diminished responsibility. |
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What is unlawful act culpable homicide? |
This is death caused as the result of doing another unlawful act. |
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What is involuntary culpable homicide? |
A death caused by someone doing what would usually be a lawful act but they have done it recklessly or with negligence. |
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What is the order that proof must be taken in in cases of voluntary culpable homicide? |
1. Proof of actusreus 2. Proof of mensrea 3. Absence / presence of a relevant defence |
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What two forms of provocation are their for the crime of murder? |
1. Retaliation to a murderous attack 2. Discovery of sexual infidelity in a relationship of fidelity |
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What is diminished responsibility in terms of homicide? |
Ifthe person’s ability to determine or control conduct for which the person wouldotherwise be convicted of murder was, at the time of the conduct, substantiallyimpaired by reason of abnormality of mind. |
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Galbraith v HM Advocate (no. 2) 2002 JC 1 |
Sets out that for diminished responsibility there does not need to be a specific mental disease on the part of the accused. In this the accused had been abused by her husband for many years and had eventually retaliated and killed him. Found guilty of voluntary culpable homicide. |
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Bird v HM Advocate 1952 JC 23 |
A drunken man caused a woman such distress that she collapsed and died of shock. Because he had been assaulting the woman at the time of the death he was charged with unlawful act culpable homicide. Appealed saying no mens rea for the death had been established but this was not necessary, only the mens rea for the original assault. |
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LordAdvocate’sReference (No. 1 of 1994) 1995SLT 248 |
A drug dealer sold a user a dangerous drug which the user later died from. The dealer was charged with culpable homicide even though he had not been there when the death had happened. Case was successful as it was the dealers actions which had caused the death and it was illegal actions (dealing of drugs) which had caused the death. |
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What is involuntary culpable homicide? |
The accused causes death through anact which is not unlawful but which nevertheless is performed in a manner whichis grossly careless or reckless. |
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Paton v HMAdvocate 1936 JC 19 |
Accused drove a motor car very speedily down a road and hit two people. One of whom died. Charged with culpable homicide as his acts, had they not been done recklessly, were legal, however he had been so reckless in these acts that they could no longer be considered legal. |
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EdmundWheatley (1853) 1 Irv. 225 |
Accused was a medical student working in a chemists who decided to make up a headache cure for a friend. This was made so recklessly that is caused the friends death. Accused was found guilty of culpable homicide. |
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RossFontana (1990) (unreported) |
A gas fire installer who failed to install a gas flue to allow the escape ofexhaust gas from the fire and who as a result allowed carbon monoxide to refluxinto the room in which the gas fire was installed and so caused the poisoningand death of two people. |
