Related Research Articles
The M'Naghten rule is any variant of the 1840s jury instruction in a criminal case when there is a defence of insanity:
that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and ... that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.
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, Philippines, South Africa, New Zealand, Scotland, Nigeria, Ghana, Ireland, Israel and the United States of America. In the United States, some crimes also require proof of attendant circumstances and/or proof of a required result directly caused by the actus reus.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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 BC.
The case of Hill v Baxter concerns the issue of automatism in driving in England and Wales without a diagnosed condition. It sets out guidelines as to when the defence will apply, and when it will not and what jury instructions should be given to leave the defence open for them to find or deny, given appropriate medical evidence and the extent of wrongfulness involved in allowing the automatism to occur in many circumstances.
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.
Scots criminal law relies far more heavily on common law than in England and Wales. Scottish criminal law includes offences against the person of murder, culpable homicide, rape and assault, offences against property such as theft and malicious mischief, and public order offences including mobbing and breach of the peace. Scottish criminal law can also be found in the statutes of the UK Parliament with some areas of criminal law, such as misuse of drugs and traffic offences appearing identical on both sides of the Border. Scottish criminal law can also be found in the statute books of the Scottish Parliament such as the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 and Prostitution (Scotland) Act 2007 which only apply to Scotland. In fact, the Scots requirement of corroboration in criminal matters changes the practical prosecution of crimes derived from the same enactment. Corroboration is not required in England or in civil cases in Scotland. Scots law is one of the few legal systems that require corroboration.
The law of persons in South Africa regulates the birth, private-law status and the death of a natural person. It determines the requirements and qualifications for legal subjectivity in South Africa, and the rights and responsibilities that attach to it.
The Trial of Lunatics Act 1883 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, allowing the jury to return a verdict that the defendant was guilty, but insane at the time, and should be kept in custody as a "criminal lunatic". This Act was passed at the request of Queen Victoria, who, the target of frequent attacks by mentally ill individuals, demanded that the verdict be changed from "not guilty" so as to act as a deterrent to other lunatics; the phrasing of "guilty of the act or omission charged, but insane so as not to be responsible, according to law, for his actions" remained in use until the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964.
The South African law of delict engages primarily with ‘the circumstances in which one person can claim compensation from another for harm that has been suffered’. JC Van der Walt and Rob Midgley define a delict ‘in general terms [...] as a civil wrong’, and more narrowly as ‘wrongful and blameworthy conduct which causes harm to a person’. Importantly, however, the civil wrong must be an actionable one, resulting in liability on the part of the wrongdoer or tortfeasor.
South African family law is concerned with those legal rules in South Africa which pertain to familial relationships. It may be defined as "that subdivision of material private law which researches, describes and regulates the origin, contents and dissolution of all legal relationships between: (i) husband and wife ; (ii) parents, guardians and children; and (iii) relatives related through blood and affinity."
"As far as family law is concerned, we in South Africa have it all. We have every kind of family; extended families, nuclear families, one-parent families, same-sex families, and in relation to each one of these there are controversy, difficulties and cases coming before the courts or due to come before the courts. This is the result of ancient history and recent history [...]. Our families are suffused with history, as family law is suffused with history, culture, belief and personality. For researchers it's a paradise, for judges a purgatory."
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.
General Accident Insurance Co South Africa Ltd v Xhego and Others is an important case in the South African law of delict, particularly the area of compensation for motor vehicle accidents. The case was heard in the Appellate Division, by Joubert JA, Van Heerden JA, Smalberger JA, F H Grosskopf JA and Van Coller AJA, on November 18, 1991, with judgment handed down on November 29. The appellant, whose attorneys were Silberbauers, Cape Town, and Symington & De Kok, Bloemfontein, was represented by BM Griesel. The respondents, whose attorneys were Coulter, Van Gend & Kotze, Claremont, and Webbers, Bloemfontein, were represented by BJR Whitehead.
R v Victor, an appeal against a conviction by a magistrate, is an important case in South African criminal law, especially as it bears on the defence of automatism. The driver of a motor vehicle was prone to epileptic seizures, and knew as much, but nevertheless put himself behind the wheel of a motor car. He had a seizure while driving and collided with a pedestrian and another car. The court on appeal sustained his conviction by a magistrate on the ground that the negligence which the accused there committed was not so much in the driving of the vehicle, but in his driving at all, knowing of his physical disability. A reasonable person would have foreseen the likelihood of a seizure and refrained from driving.
In R v Mkize, an important case in South African criminal law, especially as it pertains to the defence of automatism, the accused was charged with the murder of his sister, whom he had stabbed to death. The court found, on a balance of probabilities, that he had suffered an attack known as "epileptic equivalent." He was therefore unconscious, without judgment or will or purpose or reasoning; the stabbing was a result of blind reflex activity. There was no intention to kill. The verdict, therefore, was "not guilty."
In S v Chretien, an important case in South African criminal law, especially as it pertains to the defence of automatism, the Appellate Division held that even automatism arising out of voluntary intoxication may constitute an absolute defence, leading to a total acquittal, where, inter alia, the accused drinks so much that they lack criminal capacity.
R v Brown, 2022 SCC 18 is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the constitutionality of section 33.1 of the Criminal Code, which prohibited an accused from raising self-induced intoxication as a defence to criminal charges. The Court unanimously held that the section violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and struck it down as unconstitutional. The Court delivered the Brown decision alongside the decision for its companion case R v Sullivan.
References
- R v Schoonwinkel 1953 (3) SA 136 (C).
