| R v Motomane | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court | Witwatersrand Local Division |
| Full case name | R v Motomane |
| Decided | 6 February 1961 |
| Citation(s) | 1961 (4) SA 569 (W) |
| Court membership | |
| Judge sitting | Ludorf J |
| Case opinions | |
| Decision by | Ludorf J |
| Keywords | |
| Criminal law, Murder, Cause of death, Novus actus interveniens, Onus | |
R v Motomane, [1] is an important case in South African criminal law, heard on February 3, 1961, with significance especially for the question of the novus actus interveniens.
The accused, charged with murder, had knifed a woman, thereby injuring a vein. The bleeding stopped, but a clot formed. The woman would probably have recovered in the ordinary course, but this course was interrupted when a medical practitioner decided to operate: a prudent decision but not a necessary one. The clot was disturbed during the operation; the woman haemorrhaged and bled to death.
The court held that the burden of proof was upon the accused to show, on the probabilities, that there was an interruption of the causal chain. The court held that the causal chain had been broken, and that the Crown had failed to prove that the accused was responsible for the death of the deceased. The accused was instead convicted of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
The influential academic CR Snyman disapproves of this judgment, preferring that in S v Mabole . [2]
The rule of felony murder is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder: when an offender kills in the commission of a dangerous or enumerated crime, the offender, and also the offender's accomplices or co-conspirators, may be found guilty of murder.
Automatism is a rarely used criminal defence. It is one of the mental condition defences that relate to the mental state of the defendant. Automatism can be seen variously as lack of voluntariness, lack of culpability (unconsciousness) or excuse (Schopp). Automatism means that the defendant was not aware of his or her actions when making the particular movements that constituted the illegal act. For example, Esther Griggs in 1858 threw her child out of a first floor window believing that the house was on fire, while having a sleep terror. In 2002, Peter Buck, lead guitarist of the band R.E.M., was cleared of several charges, including assault, which resulted from automatism brought on by a bad interaction between alcohol and sleeping pills. In a 2009 case in Aberporth in west Wales, Brian Thomas strangled his wife in their camper van, also during a sleep terror, when he mistook his wife for an intruder. The defence of automatism is denying that the person was acting in the sense that the criminal law demands. As such it is really a denial-of-proof – the defendant is asserting that the offence is not made out. The prosecution does not have to disprove the defence as is sometimes erroneously reported; the prosecution has to prove all the elements of the offence including the voluntary act requirement. Automatism is a defence even against strict liability crimes like dangerous driving, where no intent is necessary.
Causation is the "causal relationship between the defendant's conduct and end result". In other words, causation provides a means of connecting conduct with a resulting effect, typically an injury. In criminal law, it is defined as the actus reus from which the specific injury or other effect arose and is combined with mens rea to comprise the elements of guilt. Causation only applies where a result has been achieved and therefore is immaterial with regard to inchoate offenses.
The Homicide Act 1957 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was enacted as a partial reform of the common law offence of murder in English law by abolishing the doctrine of constructive malice, reforming the partial defence of provocation, and by introducing the partial defences of diminished responsibility and suicide pact. It restricted the use of the death penalty for murder.
In the criminal law of Australia, self-defence is a legal defence to a charge of causing injury or death in defence of the person or, to a limited extent, property, or a partial defence to murder if the degree of force used was excessive.
Murder is an offence under the common law of England and Wales. It is considered the most serious form of homicide, in which one person kills another with the intention to cause either death or serious injury unlawfully. The element of intentionality was originally termed malice aforethought, although it required neither malice nor premeditation. Baker, chapter 14 states that many killings done with a high degree of subjective recklessness were treated as murder from the 12th century right through until the 1974 decision in DPP v Hyam.
In the English law of homicide, manslaughter is a less serious offence than murder, the differential being between levels of fault based on the mens rea or by reason of a partial defence. In England and Wales, a common practice is to prefer a charge of murder, with the judge or defence able to introduce manslaughter as an option. The jury then decides whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of either murder or manslaughter. On conviction for manslaughter, sentencing is at the judge's discretion, whereas a sentence of life imprisonment is mandatory on conviction for murder. Manslaughter may be either voluntary or involuntary, depending on whether the accused has the required mens rea for murder.
An offensive weapon is a tool made, adapted or intended for the purpose of inflicting physical injury upon another person.
The two Treblinka trials concerning the Treblinka extermination camp personnel began in 1964. Held at Düsseldorf in West Germany, they were the two judicial trials in a series of similar war crime trials held during the early 1960s, such as the Jerusalem Adolf Eichmann trial (1961) and the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials (1963–65), as a result of which the general public came to realize the extent of the crimes that some two decades earlier had been perpetrated in occupied Poland by German bureaucrats and their willing executioners. In the subsequent years, separate trials dealt with personnel of the Bełżec (1963–65), Sobibor (1966), and Majdanek (1975–81) extermination camps.
S v Mshumpa and Another was a South African case with special significance for the law of persons and succession.
S v Williams, an important case in South African law, with significant implications specifically for the law of persons and criminal law, was heard in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on 19 September 1986, with judgment handed down on 30 September. The bench comprised Chief Justice Rabie and Judges of Appeal Corbett, Hoexter, Botha and Van Heerden, who found that, when a person is kept alive artificially by means of respirator, its eventual disconnection is not in legal terms the act which causes death; it merely constitutes the termination of a fruitless attempt to avert the consequences of the wounding. The causal connection between the wounding and the eventual death exists from beginning to end, in other words; it is not interrupted by the disconnection of the respirator. The court avoided the question of whether or not brain death, in line with medical science, should amount to legal death.
The Rugård witch trials took place at Rugård manor, and the community of Ebeltoft close to it, on Jylland in Denmark in 1685–1686. It was the most significant witch trial in Denmark since the Rosborg witch trials of 1639, and caused a wave of new witch trials on Jylland after a period of diminishing witch hunts. The case led to the issue of a new law banning local courts from handing down and enacting death sentences without confirmation of the national high court, a law which interrupted the local witch hunt and eventually stopped it nationwide.
South African criminal law is the body of national law relating to crime in South Africa. In the definition of Van der Walt et al., a crime is "conduct which common or statute law prohibits and expressly or impliedly subjects to punishment remissible by the state alone and which the offender cannot avoid by his own act once he has been convicted." Crime involves the infliction of harm against society. The function or object of criminal law is to provide a social mechanism with which to coerce members of society to abstain from conduct that is harmful to the interests of society.
Criminal procedure in South Africa refers to the adjudication process of that country's criminal law. It forms part of procedural or adjectival law, and describes the means by which its substantive counterpart, South African criminal law, is applied. It has its basis mainly in English law.
Wells and Another v Shield Insurance Co Ltd and Others is an important case in the South African law of delict. It was heard in the Cape Provincial Division by Corbett J on March 15, 1965, with judgment handed down on April 7. The attorneys of the excipient, who was represented in court by DL Kooy, SC, were Reilly, Reilly & Tucker. The respondent's attorneys were Sonnenberg, Hoffman & Galombik, and he was represented by S. Aaron.
Wallach v Lew Geffen Estates CC is an important case in South African law, heard in the Appellate Division. The judges were Hoexter JA, Milne JA, Grosskopf JA, Goldstone JA and Howie AJA. An appeal from a decision in the Witwatersrand Local Division by Lazarus J, the case was heard on March 22, 1993, with judgment handed down on March 25. The court found that there is no obligation on a person to whom a cheque has been given to present the cheque on the day on which it was received. The court also held that it is open to Court at a motion or application hearing to hold that it is unnecessary to hear oral evidence and decide matter on the papers. Such a course would be justified where the hearing of oral evidence would not and could not have affected the outcome of the claim for substantive relief, and would have caused unnecessary costs and delay.
In S v Counter, an important case in South African criminal law, the appellant had shot the deceased, lodging a bullet in her buttock. Unbeknownst either to her or to her doctors, the bullet had penetrated her anal canal, causing virulent septicaemia and leading to the pneumonia from which she died two weeks later. It fell to the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa to decide whether it was the shot fired or rather medical negligence which had caused the death:
The sequence of events from the time of the deceased's admission [to hospital] until her death was not interrupted by any causal factor which affected or changed the natural order of events, more particularly there was no intervention or omission by the persons responsible for her care [...]. It is inconceivable in these circumstances that the appellant should not be held responsible for the consequences of his actions, which led directly to his wife's death by stages entirely predictable and in accordance with human experience.
In Rex v Du Plessis, an important case in South African criminal law, considered by the full court of the Transvaal Provincial Division.
Informal admissions in South African law are part of the South African law of evidence. Briefly, an admission is a statement made by a party, in civil or criminal proceedings, which is adverse to that party's case. Informal admissions, which are usually made out of court, must be distinguished from formal admissions, made in the pleadings or in court. Formal admissions are binding on the maker, and are generally made in order to reduce the number of issues before the court; an informal admission is merely an item of evidence that can be contradicted or explained away.
Post-vaccination embolic and thrombotic events, termed vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), vaccine-induced prothrombotic immune thrombocytopenia (VIPIT), thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT), or vaccine-associated thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VATT), are rare types of blood clotting syndromes that were initially observed in a number of people who had previously received the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID‑19 vaccine (AZD1222) during the COVID‑19 pandemic. It was subsequently also described in the Janssen COVID‑19 vaccine leading to suspension of its use until its safety had been reassessed.
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