Homicide Case Study

Table of Contents

Introduction2

Conditions for a Murder: Actus reus3

Sentencing for Murder3

Discussion4

Background of the Case4

Advice for Ayesha for her Liability of Murder4

Conclusion7

Bibliography8

Homicide Case Study

Introduction

At Common Law, murder was a criminal act, and held the death sentence to repetitive murders and certain severe sorts of murder, by statute under the crimes against the Person Act, 1861 and The Homicide Act, 1957. It was abolished altogether by an act of 1965.

Murder is a common law crime that involves the deliberate or intended killing of one person by another. Known to the law, it is among one of the oldest crimes and one of the three offences categorized as homicide by the Home Office. The other two offences include manslaughter (without the intention required in murder, when somebody is unlawfully killed) and infanticide (where a child (i.e. not more than one year old) is intentionally killed by her mother who is adversely suffering from the upshots of childbirth).

A great deal of case law has been generated by homicide that acts upon the way courts infer proof in such cases. For instance, a major attribute of murder is intent or 'malice aforethought'. It is difficult in practice to verify what is in mind of an offender when killing is executed by him or her, and therefore a legal conception has evolved which embraces that the term is a simply subjective symbol, for the malice may have in it not anything actually hateful and need never be in fact prepared carefully in advance. This implies that a mercy killing could be held to be malicious (where there is no malevolence), and an impulsive or unplanned assault could be held to be 'malice aforethought' (where there is no intend to kill). It is meant by such legal constructs that the differentiation among murder, manslaughter and infanticide can trigger the least of facts or their construal in many cases. Due to this, every suspicious death is initially investigated by the police as murder, who only think about the options once all the proof is available.

Conditions for a Murder: Actus reus

Such term is known as Actus Reus that is used to express not only itself a criminal act, but all of the conditions and end results that make the act a crime.

The committal of a crime of murder is valid, where a person is sane i.e. of sound mind and discernment; not in a self defence or justified killing i.e. unlawfully kills; any reasonable creature (human being); with an intention to take life or cause grievous bodily harm.

Sentencing for Murder

A mandatory life sentence is carried by a murder conviction. A lesser sentence cannot pass be passed by the judge regardless of how extenuating the conditions might be. Three partial defences are existed to murder which may lessen the condemnation to voluntary manslaughter which contains an utmost sentence of life and therefore permits the discretion of judge on sentencing. In the Homicide Act 1957, these partial defences are held and comprise decreased responsibility, provocation and suicide ...