Jimmy's Liability Case Study
I am assessing Jimmy’s liability for the death of Bruce. This question is set out under the field of Homicide, as there has been an unlawful killing. The likely charge against Jimmy is Murder. Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a human being with the intention to kill or cause GBH. (Moloney) for the first part of the question I will present the prosecution case and for the second part I will present the defence and lastly I will conclude.
The actus Reus of murder is the unlawful killing of a human being under the Queens peace (Moloney) the prosecution must prove beyond all reasonable doubt, that Jimmy caused Bruce’s death. (Deller) Two tests must be applied to determine whether Jimmy was the legal and factual cause of Bruce’s death …show more content…
If Jimmy was charged with murder two partial defences would be available to him: LSC and Diminished responsibility. If the defence raised by jimmy was successful it would reduce his conviction to voluntary manslaughter, which does not carry a mandatory life sentence.
Firstly to consider LSC, this is governed by s.54 and s.55 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. In order to establish this defence it must be shown that Jimmy lost self- control, in application to jimmy we can see that by retrieving a pen knife from his pocket and stabbing Bruce several times in the chest that he lost self -control, the second element being that Jimmy’s LSC had a qualifying trigger of either anger or fear, we can see that Jimmy’s self -control was not triggered by fear but by anger, his anger was triggered by words said/done which were “Lets beat up peg-leg” it is arguable that these things constituted circumstances of an extremely grave nature and Jimmy had a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged. Thus jimmy may be able to argue a legitimate anger trigger. However that said the law commission stated the level of seriousness required to trigger the anger trigger would be analogous to a parent seeing the abuse of their child, the case of Zebedee confirmed this therefore, the words said may struggle to satisfy this high
The actus Reus of murder is the unlawful killing of a human being under the Queens peace (Moloney) the prosecution must prove beyond all reasonable doubt, that Jimmy caused Bruce’s death. (Deller) Two tests must be applied to determine whether Jimmy was the legal and factual cause of Bruce’s death …show more content…
If Jimmy was charged with murder two partial defences would be available to him: LSC and Diminished responsibility. If the defence raised by jimmy was successful it would reduce his conviction to voluntary manslaughter, which does not carry a mandatory life sentence.
Firstly to consider LSC, this is governed by s.54 and s.55 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. In order to establish this defence it must be shown that Jimmy lost self- control, in application to jimmy we can see that by retrieving a pen knife from his pocket and stabbing Bruce several times in the chest that he lost self -control, the second element being that Jimmy’s LSC had a qualifying trigger of either anger or fear, we can see that Jimmy’s self -control was not triggered by fear but by anger, his anger was triggered by words said/done which were “Lets beat up peg-leg” it is arguable that these things constituted circumstances of an extremely grave nature and Jimmy had a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged. Thus jimmy may be able to argue a legitimate anger trigger. However that said the law commission stated the level of seriousness required to trigger the anger trigger would be analogous to a parent seeing the abuse of their child, the case of Zebedee confirmed this therefore, the words said may struggle to satisfy this high