Legal Causation in the Context of Homicide

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Analysis
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

It is generally recognized that the absence of a causal link between the acts of a person and the future socially dangerous consequences excludes criminal liability. On contrary, establishing a causal link enables solving a subsequent question of guilt imputed to the person causing the harmful result and gives a basis to recognize their acts as a crime. This paper investigates the question of legal causation along with providing a historical background of the basic concepts of causation in the context of homicide in criminal law.

Analysis

In most cases, investigating the causal link in a criminal case is not faced with difficulties in its analysis, and often the case is solved without hesitation.

This is due to the reason that in individual cases obvious development of reasonable events (usually binary causal connection) is enabled, guided by the understanding of causality and logic, to properly settle this issue. In addition, in several cases the question of causation does not even arise, the nature of constructing disposition of criminal law, when the inevitability of injury makes itself the object of a crime that a socially dangerous act.

Extremely diverse are the attempts of solving the question about the causal connection in the doctrine, moreover in the newest studies, which removed the study about the so-called exceptional causality, there are two sharply outstanding directions, of which one, is the subjective-identifies concept of causality and guilt, and the other attempts to resolve a question about the causal connection based on the objective conditions, not dependent on the guilt.

In the medieval doctrine, a question about the causal connection was examined especially in the context of a homicide, and the very concept “of causing”, because of which in particular the tendency to soften the severity of punishments, was understood very limitedly.

For the imputation, it was required in the first place, that the results would be caused exclusively by the actions of the guilty as, for example, the death from the direct shot; the origin of any other forces, which contributed to the result, removed the imputation of this result.

In describing the issue of the basics of criminal liability, British theorists necessarily indicate that the criminal law of England for centuries rests on the principle of “Actus non reum facit, nisi mens sit rea” (the act itself does not prove guilty if the will is not). From here comes a general statement: to apply a punishment must prove not only unlawful act (actus reus), but also guilty consciousness that corresponds to it (men’s rea).

The constitutive signs of a homicide, the majority of which is unchanged or a somewhat transformed form were preserved in the definition of this crime in present time, were established by the judicial practice at the beginning of the 17^th century and they were generalized by one of the classicists of common law Edward Coke. In his opinion, the composition of the crime in question is located when the person, who is found insensible consciousness and who acts freely, unlawfully deprives the life of any reasonable essence, which received independent physical existence and under the protection of the royal state.

By the terminology of the aforementioned definition, the guilt in the context of homicide is called malice aforethought expressed or implied.

However, in the context of the present law, this concept not only does not correspond to the semantic value of the words used for its definition but has narrower content, than the one which was packed into it in the times of Coke and during the subsequent centuries. After the abolition by the homicide law of 1957 some forms of constructive intentions, it started covering the following varieties of guilt: the intention to cause death or heavy physical harm and reckless toward causing death or heavy physical harm.

Common law established several circumstances, which exclude the unlawful (public danger) of the murder: making an arrest, averting crime with the application of self-defense, the defense of third persons and the protection of property, the realization of justice and accidents.

The analysis of a number of the standards, for example, the rules which regulate the conditions of the lawfulness of averting the crime, shows that already the principle of the real guilty conscious is frequently substituted by the objective principle of guilt at this step in homicide.

By the criminal law of 1967, which formulates some cases of the legitimate reasons for harm, the individual can use such force, which is reasonable in the circumstances of averting crime or making of a legitimate arrest either assisting the legitimate arrest of criminals, suspected of the crime or those, who are illegally free.

In the report to the parliamentary commission, and also in the recommendations regarding the interpretation of this article it is indicated, that the law courts with a resolution of a question about the rationality of the behavior of subject will consider all circumstances of the matter, turning special attention to nature and degree of the used force, the seriousness of the avoided harm and possibility of its averting by other methods.

Neither in the report to the commission nor in the law itself are contained indications relative to the calculation of the mental condition of the person at the moment of averting the crime.

From the case of the heavy murder of Palmer and McInnes, examined in 1971 it is followed that the protection in the case of the causing death in the state of self-defense can prove to be ineffective because that accused used more force than the reasonable person would apply.

The fixed rule of the estimation of rationality does not influence the resolution of a question about the lawfulness of an act in the simplest cases when the murder was perfected for averting the insignificant crime and the disproportion of that substituted and the avoided harm is obvious for everyone.

However, the situations are not excluded, when the person consciously directing the efforts to cause death or heavy physical harm, in the view of the lower intellectual abilities, emotional excitations, honest delusions relative to the actual circumstances of the proceedings or either other psychological reasons, could not correctly estimate the seriousness of the harm that threatened him or provide the possibility of averting it by other methods.

Nevertheless, this behavior is unlawful, since based on the standards of a reasonable person, who is located in his position, it is assumed to be realizing the circumstances indicated.

Without stopping on a study of other cases of legitimate murder, it is noted only that the criterion “of rationality”, which lies at the basis of the estimation of the majority of circumstances and reference of behavior to the category of legitimate, gives wide space for the judicial discretion, allowing in concrete situations to declare lawfulness of the actions of the persons, objectionable in some instances, and to free from the responsibility those, whose actions are beneficial to these instances.

This understanding of guilt creates several inconveniences for the theorists with its agreement with the study about the causal connection, which presents the unique mixture of the prejudices of the theories of causality. According to this study to acknowledge that the actions of a person are the cause of death of another, it is not compulsory to establish that the actions contained the real danger or caused the death.

The subject will be declared responsible for the deprivation of life when his initial action is connected with the death by a whole series of intermediating circumstances, at least at the time of causing this action was considerably distant from the harmful result.

This concept of a causal link in combination with understanding the guilt as a realization of the actual side of the committed makes it possible to recognize a doctor as guilty of murder, who was forced to make operation out of the hospital conditions to avoid the death of the patient.

In this example, there is a possibility an infection enters into the organism of the patient and a fatal outcome, and the person, who makes this operation, realizes this circumstance. To avoid the absurd solutions the jurists introduce into the concept of guilt the sign of social usefulness of the subject’s behavior.

This is by no means is caused by the intention to establish the requirement of the consciousness of the public danger act as the sign of guilt, since the same standards of reasonable person are proposed as the standard of the behavior of the defendant. However, the establishment of the named sign causes several other special features of understanding fault in the English law and therefore it deserves more detailed examination.

Based on the common law, a required element of guilty consciousness for the crimes, in the definition of which harmful consequences are included, the foresight of such consequences appears.

Two forms of guilt correspond to this requirement – intention, and imprudence. Differentiation between both of them is conducted according to the intellectual and strong-willed signs. Intention occurs when the person will foresee the consequences of his/her behavior and desires or internally be assured of the harmful consequence.

Imprudence indicates this state of the psyche, when it foresees, that the committed action “will probably» have by its results unlawful consequence, but does not desire to cause it.

The juridical value of this differentiation consists in the fact that the first forms the guilt as an intention in conjunction with the desire of the defendant to only cause a criminal outcome.

The second form of intention – internal confidence in the advent of the anticipated consequence – irrefutably presumes the desire of the defendant to cause this consequence independent of the factual strong-willed attitude of the person toward it. For the illustration of the last form of guilt the theorist, G. William gives an example from the judicial practice with the pilgrims, whom the defendants landed to uninhabited rocky sea island, as a result of which eighteen of the land died, and four were saved by unexpected ship which approached the island.

In this matter, the charge of a heavy murder is justified, although the defendants unimportantly refer to the death of pilgrims, since there was internal confidence in their loss.

The same strong-willed element (careless attitude to the harmful consequence) is inherent in another form of guilt – imprudence.

Besides the careless attitude to the result, the unwillingness of its approach with the rashness can be expressed in the fact that the defendant simply hopes that the result will not start or does not desire similar consequences and hopes for a specific opposition to their approach or even does all the possible means that he/she can for averting such consequences. In such a way, the strong-willed element of this form of guilt unites those states of the psyches.

In general, in homicide “there may be a degree of remoteness between the act or omission of an accused and the result which is alleged to constitute an offence. The eventual result may be the product of additional factors which are more directly connected than is the conduct of the accused. The function of the law of causation is to identify the conditions under which the result may nevertheless be attributed to the accused.”

Conclusion

The previous overview has demonstrated the basic principles of causation, along with outlining some of its basic flaws. However, it is enough to note that, despite some improvements in this area, in general, it remains reactionary.

Works Cited

Fumerton, Richard, and Ken Kress. “Causation and the Law: Preemption, Lawful Sufficiency, and Causal Sufficiency.” Law and Contemporary Problems 64.4 (2001): 83.

Solan, Lawrence M., and John M. Darley. “Causation, Contribution, and Legal Liability: An Empirical Study.” Law and Contemporary Problems 64.4 (2001): 264.

Colvin, Eric. “Causation in Criminal Law.” Bond Law Review 1.2 (1989).

Rv. Church. The Criminal Law Review. London, 1965.

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Legal Causation in the Context of Homicide

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