Homicide in a few words
By Adrien CK.
Homicide is a generic term defined as causing the death of a human being, while murder is the most serious form of homicide. However, murder is distinguished from other types of homicide because the defendant must act with specific intent which we will elaborate in future articles.
The standard way to describe homicide in British Criminal Law comes from the work of the judge Coke: “when a man of sound mind and of discretion unlawfully killeth within any country of the realm any reasonable creature in rerum natura (a human being) under the King’s Peace, so that the party wounded, or hurt, etc. die of the wound, or hurt, etc. within a year and a day after the same.” There are a number of elements in this definition that give rise to possible defenses. A sound memory and age of discretion mean that the defendant has a potential defense if he or she is insane or an infant, while some killings are not considered murder and are not unlawful, such as self-defense.
The Law Reform Act of 1996 eliminated the requirement in British law that any injury occur within a year and a day of death. It is important to point out that in situations where death occurs more than three years after the injury, it will require the consent of the Attorney-General before proceeding forward.
The unlawful killing of another, alternatively, means that it is lawful to kill another human being in certain circumstances, such as killing an enemy combatant in a war, the scenario where a victim kills his aggressor in self-defense, or in cases of the lawful application of the death penalty.
A reasonable person in being can simply mean that the victims of a homicide must be a person, and in being means when that person is born alive and detained the capacity of independent life. In the case of R v. Adebolajo (2014), it was held that the only killings allowed for the definition of murder, under the King’s peace, are those in the course of war and rebellion against the crown.
To be continued.
