Constructive Manslaughter Scenario Question

Question 1

What do you put in your constructive manslaughter intro?

Answer 1

-Defintion of constructive manslaughter
-For ____ to be liable they must have committed:
1. An unlawful positive act
2. Which must have caused the death
3. The act must have been dangerous and must have injured someone
4. The D must have the mens Rea of that unlawful act

Question 2

What do you put in paragraph 1: There must be an unlawful act.

Answer 2

*The D must have committed a crime which resulted in death of V. Unlawful act must be criminal-Franklin
*Apply ____ Actions (Lowe, Lamb, Larkin)
*Apply AR of whatever non fatal offence committed

Question 3

What do you put in paragraph 2: Dangerousness

Answer 3

*Objective test ‘sober reasonable person’ (Church)
*Not needed to be aimed at V (R v Mitchell)
*Can be aimed at property (Goodfellow)

Question 4

What do you put in paragraph 3: Causation

Answer 4

*Factual causation (Pagett) (white)
*Legal causation (smith)
*Thin skull rule (Blaue)
*Act of a 3rd party (Latif)
*Victims own conduct (Robert’s)
*Contemporaneity rule (church)

Question 5

What do you put in a scenario where there is a heart attack?

Answer 5

The resulting harm does not need to be serious but must be physical
*Fear doesn’t count as harm unless= Shock = Heart attack (Dawson and Others)
*Buglary counts as a dangerous act (Watson)
-R v Carey and others, R v Lynch

Question 6

What do you do in a scenario with drug taking?

Answer 6

If the D injected the V they’re liable (R v Cato)
-if D’s actions are insufficient in satisfying rules of causation they wont be guilty (R v Dalby)
-If the V self injects its an intervening act/break in chain of causation (R v Dias) (R v Rogers) (R v Kennedy)