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Good Samaritan laws offer legal protection to people who give reasonable assistance to those who are, or who they believe to be, injured, ill, in peril, or otherwise incapacitated. The protection is intended to reduce bystanders' hesitation to assist, for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death. An example of such a law in common-law areas of Canada: a good Samaritan doctrine is a legal principle that prevents a rescuer who has voluntarily helped a victim in distress from being successfully sued for wrongdoing. Its purpose is to keep people from being reluctant to help a stranger in need for fear of legal repercussions should they make some mistake in treatment. By contrast, a duty to rescue law requires people to offer assistance and holds those who fail to do so liable.
Actus reus, sometimes called the external element or the objective element of a crime, is the Latin term for the "guilty act" which, when proved beyond a reasonable doubt in combination with the mens rea, "guilty mind", produces criminal liability in the common law-based criminal law jurisdictions of England and Wales, Canada, Australia, India, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa, New Zealand, Scotland, Nigeria, Ghana, Ireland, Israel and the United States of America. In the United States of America, some crimes also require proof of an attendant circumstance.
Under the English common law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even if they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller and demands the money is guilty of armed robbery. Anyone else directly involved in the commission of the crime, such as the lookout or the getaway car driver, is an accomplice, even if in the absence of an underlying offense keeping a lookout or driving a car would not be an offense.
A duty to rescue is a concept in tort law that arises in a number of cases, describing a circumstance in which a party can be held liable for failing to come to the rescue of another party who could face potential injury or death without being rescued. In common law systems, it is rarely formalized in statutes which would bring the penalty of law down upon those who fail to rescue. This does not necessarily obviate a moral duty to rescue: though law is binding and carries government-authorized sanctions and awarded civil penalties, there are also separate ethical arguments for a duty to rescue that may prevail even where law does not punish failure to rescue.
In tort law, the standard of care is the only degree of prudence and caution required of an individual who is under a duty of care.
Volenti non fit iniuria is a common law doctrine which states that if someone willingly places themselves in a position where harm might result, knowing that some degree of harm might result, they are not able to bring a claim against the other party in tort or delict. Volenti applies only to the risk which a reasonable person would consider them as having assumed by their actions; thus a boxer consents to being hit, and to the injuries that might be expected from being hit, but does not consent to his opponent striking him with an iron bar, or punching him outside the usual terms of boxing. Volenti is also known as a "voluntary assumption of risk."
The legal principle of vicarious liability applies to hold one person liable for the actions of another when engaged in some form of joint or collective activity.
An omission is a failure to act, which generally attracts different legal consequences from positive conduct. In the criminal law, an omission will constitute an actus reus and give rise to liability only when the law imposes a duty to act and the defendant is in breach of that duty. In tort law, similarly, liability will be imposed for an omission only exceptionally, when it can be established that the defendant was under a duty to act.
In English tort law, an individual may owe a duty of care to another, to ensure that they do not suffer any unreasonable harm or loss. If such a duty is found to be breached, a legal liability is imposed upon the tortfeasor to compensate the victim for any losses they incur. The idea of individuals owing strangers a duty of care – where beforehand such duties were only found from contractual arrangements – developed at common law, throughout the 20th century. The doctrine was significantly developed in the case of Donoghue v Stevenson, where a woman succeeded in establishing a manufacturer of ginger beer owed her a duty of care, where it had been negligently produced. Following this, the duty concept has expanded into a coherent judicial test, which must be satisfied in order to claim in negligence.
Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246 (1952), is a U.S. Supreme Court case, relevant to the legal topic of criminal intent. It described two classes of crimes, those requiring a mental state, and those that do not. It did not delineate a precise line between them. In one class are traditional crimes, some of which have been around since before laws existed, such as stealing. This first class of crimes required a jury to find both an act, a harm, and an intent to act against the law. The second class, public welfare offenses, did not require a criminal mental state such as intent or knowledge. These included regulatory laws necessary for the public health and welfare, such as relating to food and drug safety. The purpose was to create a public awareness of both acts and negligent failure to act, which creates a public danger, even if there is no actual injury to a person or property.
Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th century BCE.
English criminal law concerns offences, their prevention and the consequences, in England and Wales. Criminal conduct is considered to be a wrong against the whole of a community, rather than just the private individuals affected. The state, in addition to certain international organisations, has responsibility for crime prevention, for bringing the culprits to justice, and for dealing with convicted offenders. The police, the criminal courts and prisons are all publicly funded services, though the main focus of criminal law concerns the role of the courts, how they apply criminal statutes and common law, and why some forms of behaviour are considered criminal. The fundamentals of a crime are a guilty act and a guilty mental state. The traditional view is that moral culpability requires that a defendant should have recognised or intended that they were acting wrongly, although in modern regulation a large number of offences relating to road traffic, environmental damage, financial services and corporations, create strict liability that can be proven simply by the guilty act.
People v. Beardsley 150 Mich. 206, 113 N.W. 1128 (1907) is a well-known case that illustrates the parameters around the legal necessity of a duty to act, and the criminal liability of failure to act when there is an obligation to provide reasonable assistance. In Jones v. United States 308 F.2d 307, the categories falling under this legal duty were set forth. They include duties based on statute, duties based on contract, duties based on the voluntary assuming of responsibility as for the care of a child, and duties based on legal relationships, such as between parent and child or husband and a wife.
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It proscribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law is established by statute, which is to say that the laws are enacted by a legislature. Criminal law includes the punishment and rehabilitation of people who violate such laws. Criminal law varies according to jurisdiction, and differs from civil law, where emphasis is more on dispute resolution and victim compensation, rather than on punishment or rehabilitation. Criminal procedure is a formalized official activity that authenticates the fact of commission of a crime and authorizes punitive or rehabilitative treatment of the offender.
In the North American legal system and in US Occupational Safety and Health regulations, willful violation is an "act done voluntarily with either an intentional disregard of, or plain indifference to," the requirements of Acts, regulations, statutes or relevant workplace policies. This is described with slightly different emphasis in an OSHA technical manual that a "willful violation exists under the Act where the evidence shows either an intentional violation of the Act or plain indifference to its requirements."
The omissions of individuals are generally not criminalised in English criminal law, subject to situations of special duty, contractual duty, and the creation of dangerous situations. Whilst other jurisdictions have adopted general statutory duties to rescue, it is not recognised in English law that an individual has any duty to assist strangers in situations of peril. Proponents of the current legal position regard it as wrong for the criminal law to punish individuals for committing no physical act, which it is argued would be an infringement on human autonomy. Academics arguing for reform argue that a social responsibility to assist others should exist, particularly where there would be no danger to the rescuer.
Aiding and abetting is a legal doctrine related to the guilt of someone who aids or abets in the commission of a crime. It exists in a number of different countries and generally allows a court to pronounce someone guilty for aiding and abetting in a crime even if they are not the principal offender.
Responsibility for criminal law and criminal justice in the United States is shared between the states and the federal government.
English law contains homicide offences – those acts involving the death of another person. For a crime to be considered homicide, it must take place after the victim's legally recognised birth, and before their legal death. There is also the usually uncontroversial requirement that the victim be under the "Queen's peace". The death must be causally linked to the actions of the defendant. Since the abolition of the year and a day rule, there is no maximum time period between any act being committed and the victim's death, so long as the former caused the latter.
In S v Russell, an important case in South African criminal law, heard on July 12, 1967, the accused had been warned of the danger of operating a crane under a live electric wire, but had failed to pass on the warning to his co-employees. This omission, constituting negligence, led to the death of one of them. He was convicted of culpable homicide.
References
- ↑ Criminal Law Cases and Materials, 7th ed 2012, John Kaplan, Robert Weisberg, Guyora Binder
- ↑ Jones v. United States (1962), United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 308 F.2d 307 (1962)
- ↑ United States v. Hatatley, 130 F.3d 1399, 1406 (10th Cir. 1997)