Criminal Liability for Non-Aggressive Death

269 Pages·2008·1.5 MB·English

by  C.M.V. Clarkson and Sally Cunningham

CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR
NON-AGGRESSIVE DEATH
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Criminal Liability for
Non-Aggressive Death
Edited by
C.M.V. CLARKSON AND SALLY CUNNINGHAM
University of Leicester, UK
© C.M.V. Clarkson and Sally Cunningham 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
C.M.V. Clarkson and Sally Cunningham have asserted their moral right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
Hampshire GU11 3HR USA
England
www. ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Criminal liability for non-aggressive death
1. Manslaughter - Great Britain - Congresses 2. Criminal
liability - Great Britain - Congresses 3. Homicide - Great
Britain - Congresses 4. Negligence, Criminal - Great
Britain - Congresses
I. Clarkson, C. M. V. (Christopher M. V.) II. Cunningham,
Sally
345.4'10252
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Criminal liability for non-aggressive death / by Chris Clarkson and Sally Cunningham,
[editors].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Most of the papers were presented at a conference on criminal liability for non-
aggressive death, Leicester, England, April 2007.
ISBN 978-0-7546-7334-7
1. Manslaughter--Great Britain. 2. Criminal liability--Great Britain. 3. Homicide--Great
Britain. 4. Negligence, Criminal--Great Britain. I. Clarkson, C. M. V. (Christopher M.
V.) II. Cunningham, Sally.
KD7963.C75 2008
345.42'02525--dc22
2008002421
ISBN 978-0-7546-7334-7
Contents
List of Tables vii
Notes on Contributors ix
1 Introduction
C.M.V. Clarkson and Sally Cunningham 1
2 Homicide Reform and the Changing Character of Legal Thought
Jeremy Horder 11
3 The Limits of Manslaughter
Victor Tadros 35
4 Whose Luck Is It Anyway?
R.A. Duff 61
5 Corporate Manslaughter: Need for a Special Offence?
C.M.V. Clarkson 79
6 Vehicular Homicide: Need for a Special Offence?
Sally Cunningham 97
7 Mum’s Not the Word: An Analysis of Section 5,
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004
Jonathan Herring 125
8 Medical Killing: Need for a Specific Offence?
Oliver Quick 155
9 Dealing with Drug-induced Homicide
William Wilson 177
vi Criminal Liability for Non-Aggressive Death
10 Manslaughter Versus Special Homicide Offences:
An Australian Perspective
Stanley Yeo 199
11 ‘Manslaughter’: Generic or Nominate Offences?
Andrew Ashworth 235
Index 249
List of Tables
9.1 Estimated numbers of 16- to 59-year-olds who have taken drugs 187
9.2 Number of deaths and percentage change compared to 1999 for
specific substances involved in deaths related to drug misuse,
England, 1999–2004 188
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Notes on Contributors
Andrew Ashworth is Vinerian Professor of English Law in the University of
Oxford, and Chairman of the Sentencing Advisory Panel. His book Principles of
Criminal Law was published in a 5th edition in 2006. His other texts are Sentencing
and Criminal Justice (4th ed., 2005); The Criminal Process (3rd ed., with Mike
Redmayne, 2005); and Human Rights and Criminal Justice (2nd ed., with Alison
Macdonald and Ben Emmerson, 2007).
Chris Clarkson is a Professor of Law at the University of Leicester. At present he
teaches Criminal Law and Conflict of Laws. In 2005 he was appointed Specialist
Advisor to the Home Affairs and Work and Pensions Joint Committees of the House
of Commons examining the Draft Corporate Manslaughter Bill. He writes articles
in Criminal Law as well as two books: Understanding Criminal Law (4th ed., 2005)
and Clarkson and Keating, Criminal Law: Text and Materials (6th ed., 2007). He
also writes a book and articles on the Conflict of Laws.
Sally Cunningham has been a lecturer in law at the University of Leicester, where
she teaches Criminal Law and Criminal Justice System, since 2004. That year she
was also awarded her PhD from the same university. Her thesis is entitled ‘Criminal
Charges Brought in Cases of Road Death Incidents in the East Midlands: Implications
for Law Reform’ and involved an empirical study of police and Crown Prosecution
Service files. Between 1998–2000 she worked on another empirical study of homicide
cases at Coventry University with Barry Mitchell, some of the results of which have
been published in an appendix to the Law Commission’s Report No. 304, Murder,
Manslaughter and Infanticide. She joined the editorial team on the 6th edition of
Clarkson and Keating’s Criminal Law: Text and Materials, and is currently working
on a book to be published in 2008 with Ashgate entitled Driving Offences: Law,
Policy and Practice.
Antony Duff studied classics and philosophy as an undergraduate at Oxford, and
philosophy as a postgraduate. He has taught in the Department of Philosophy at the
University of Stirling since 1970. His research interests lie mainly in the philosophy
of criminal law – both in penal theory (Trials and Punishments, CUP 1986;
Punishment, Communication, and Community, OUP 2001) and in the principles and
structures of criminal liability (Intention, Agency and Criminal Liability, Blackwell
1990; Criminal Attempts, OUP 1996; Answering for Crime, Hart 2007). Together
with Lindsay Farmer, Sandra Marshall and Victor Tadros, he has just completed an
AHRC-funded project on the criminal trial (The Trial on Trial, three volumes, Hart
2004, 2006, 2007); with the same collaborators, he is about to embark on a new
AHRC-funded project on criminalisation.