Homicide in a few words II
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. In our previous article, we used the definition of the esteemed jurist Coke of:
When a man of sound memory and of the age of discretion unlawfully killeth within any country of the realm any reasonable creature in rerum natura under the King’s Peace, so as the party wounded, or hurt, etcetera, dies of the wound or hurt, etcetera, within a year and a day after the same, Jurist Coke
And elaborating on it, we included in our article that killing is considered unlawful unless in certain circumstances, such as war and peace, capital punishment cases, or circumstances of legitimate defense. The actus reus of homicide must cause the death of a human being, as stated above, but this also applies to the death caused to a living child by prenatal injury.
This was proven according in the case of Attorney General’s Reference (No.3 of 1994) where the stabbing of a young pregnant women (22-24 weeks pregnant) by the accused (the father of the unborn child). One of the stab wounds penetrated the womb with no physical evidence of the fetus being hurt. Soon afterwards, the woman went into labor, and it was then discovered that the fetus was indeed stabbed, and the child died after 121 days. Although the stabbing was not related to the cause of death of the child (the child died due to lung infections), it was considered a substantial cause of the premature birth where the accused was charged with murder but convicted of manslaughter instead, cementing the fact that the death of a living child by pre-natal injury fits the criteria of a reasonable creature for homicide. (In rerum natura, a human being).
In the case of R v. Poulton (1832), the defendant’s having strangled her baby to death after birth gave rise to the issue of whether a fetus was a human being for the conviction of murder or manslaughter.
- “Being born must mean that the whole body is brought into the world, and it is not sufficient that the child expires in the progress of the birth. Whether the child was born alive or not depends mainly upon the evidence of the medical men. Sir Joseph Littledale
On the other side of the spectrum, the notion of the definition of’reasonable person in being’ was further reinforced in the cases of CP (a child) v. First-tier Tribunal (Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority-CICA) and ORS 2014. The issue raised in this appeal concerns the ability of a child to claim compensation for being born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) as a direct consequence of her mother’s excessive drinking of alcohol while pregnant.
The question is whether CP is considered ‘any other person’ within the framework of s. 23 of the Offences Against Persons Act 1861. The Court concludes that the CP was not considered so because she was not born when the damage was being committed, and the claim for criminal injury compensation was dismissed.
