With Malice Aforethought: A Study Of The Crime And Punishment For Homicide

This document was uploaded by one of our users. The uploader already confirmed that they had the permission to publish it. If you are author/publisher or own the copyright of this documents, please report to us by using this DMCA report form.

Simply click on the Download Book button.

Yes, Book downloads on Ebookily are 100% Free.

Sometimes the book is free on Amazon As well, so go ahead and hit "Search on Amazon"

For three centuries the criminal law has given rise to a divergent set of approaches to the crime of homicide. Whereas the law of murder has not fundamentally changed, the crime of manslaughter has resulted in some forms of homicide being visited with relatively minor penalties. These various categories of homicide present considerable problems relating to intention, or lack of it, and the culpability of those whose behavior, while lacking in evident malice, is characterized by the grossest recklessness. The reaction of the relatives of victims is simpler; they frequently find it impossible to distinguish between the moral culpability of a drunken or disqualified driver who kills and that of an offender who is convicted of a murder resulting from a drunken brawl. This book addresses the powerful and controversial arguments for the current distinctions between murder, manslaughter and other specific categories of crime to be abolished and subsumed within a single crime of culpable homicide. In the course of this analysis the book considers two issues of great contemporary importance: the phenomenon of corporate homicide, and the special problem which arises from establishing criminal intent and individual responsibility; and the question of the special defenses available to those charged with unlawful killing — particularly self-defense and provocation, where popular notions of what is reasonable are at variance with legal precedent. While this book considers criminal homicide in its social, historical and legal setting, it also goes far beyond in setting out the case for fundamental reform.

Author(s): Louis Jacques Blom-Cooper, Terence Morris
Year: 2004

Language: English
Pages: 204

Half Title Page......Page 2
Half Title verso......Page 3
Title Page......Page 4
Title verso......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Table of Cases......Page 8
Table of Statutes......Page 12
What this Book is about......Page 14
Voices from Olympus......Page 16
The Task Unfinished......Page 17
Climate Change in the Politics of Criminal Justice: A Trans-Atlantic Chill......Page 19
The Resurrection of 'Civil Death': Confinement in the 'Iron Cage of Vengeance'......Page 20
Towards the Abolition of the Penalty of Civil Death......Page 21
2. The Legacy of Sr. Edward Coke, Knight......Page 28
'Think Before You Act, or How One Wrong May Lead to Another'.......Page 30
In the Beginning: Laws for Less Orderly Times......Page 31
A Forceful Man of Law; of Many Parts and Great Learning......Page 35
'Oh Yes He Is!' 'Oh No, He's Not!'......Page 41
'Whatever Happened to Justice?'......Page 42
The Legacy: A Worthy Inheritance or a Curse to Those Who Came After?......Page 44
3. Murder will out: the substantive law today......Page 46
Necessity, Duress and Self-Defence......Page 55
Defences Relating to Issues in Mental Health......Page 61
4. Hunting the Chimaera......Page 72
5. Expert Evidence on Trial......Page 86
Conclusions......Page 100
Coda: Overloading the Jury......Page 101
1066 and all that......Page 102
Objective Judgment-Guaranteed......Page 103
6. The Past Revisited: When Memory Lifts the Latch......Page 106
Thirty Years on: A Deal, Curiously Remembered......Page 107
1995: The Year of Revelation......Page 109
Half a Column of Hansard on a Summer Afternoon......Page 113
Thirty Years on: The Commons Deliberate......Page 116
7. On the Dealing Floors of the Lords: Rewind to 1965......Page 122
Just Before the Dawn......Page 125
The Day of Abolition Comes: or the Hangman's P45 (Had he not been an Independent Contractor)......Page 126
Unfinished Business......Page 134
An Unhappy Lot......Page 140
Ending the 'Executive' Tariff: The Legislative Response......Page 141
9. Corporate Killing......Page 146
Welfare and Humanitarian Legislation......Page 147
Death in Quiet Water......Page 148
Death in a Raging Sea......Page 151
Off the Rails: The Same Questions are Asked......Page 153
Is there no Remedy?......Page 156
Death on the Road......Page 160
The Blameworthy 'Accident'......Page 161
11. The Appellate Process......Page 168
Acquital, Quashed Conviction and Innocence......Page 169
12. The Crime and the Penalty: Thinking Outside the Box......Page 174
The Received Wisdom......Page 175
A View of the Life Sentence......Page 177
The Argument That Does Not Go Away......Page 178
Guidlines or Tramlines? The Essence of the Argument for Change......Page 180
Escaping the Box......Page 184
Letting them Loose or Keeping them Confined......Page 185
A Sketch for Law Reform......Page 187
Inside Out, Upside Down (Or, Back to Front)......Page 188
Conclusion......Page 191
Annex 1......Page 192
Annex 2......Page 193
Annex 3......Page 196
Annex 4......Page 200
Annex 5......Page 202
Annex 6......Page 203
Annex 7......Page 207
Index......Page 214