Tuesday 6 November 2007

Can someone explain to me...

...why this is manslaughter?

To me, kicking/beating a person who is down means attempted murder at the least, for to do so is risking death and to continue to perform an act that risks death is surely murder.

"did not mean to kill"? I thought ignorance was no defence.

3 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

All very tricky. I only did a couple of units of criminal law at uni, but it seems that the boundaries have been moved a lot since then. For the worse, of course.

Edward Allen said...

I guess that's the last time that girl will be shouting "wot yoo boggin at?" for some time...

Judge Holden said...

Well, actually youre only supposed to have to intend to cause grievous bodily harm as the mens rea. The actus reus is death. This makes it even more unbelievable in my opinion. Surely, kicking someone twenty times on the floor is intent to cause grievous bodily harm?