LWZ114 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Mens Rea, Grievous Bodily Harm, Actus Reus
HOMICIDE, MURDER, PROVOCATION & INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER
MURDER – Fault Element
❖ R v Crabbe: The requisite fault element for murder is satisfied by
➢ An intention to cause death or inflict grievous bodily harm; or
➢ Knowledge that the death was a probable consequence of his/her conduct.
❖ Rhodes: ‘Grievous bodily harm’ means ‘really serious injury’ to the particular victim.
➢ In Code jurisdictions, gbh is injury that is life-endangering to the victim.
Intention (to cause death or gbh)
❖ 2 forms of intention:
➢ Direct intention – accused acts with the purpose or desire of bringing about the particular result.
➢ Oblique intention – accused knows his conduct will produce a particular result, notwithstanding that the result is
undesirable.
❖ The prosecution need not prove that the accused intended
➢ the exact mode of death (R v Demirian); or
➢ to kill or inflict gbh to a particular victim (R v Martin).
Recklessness (knowledge that acts will probably cause death or gbh)
❖ R v Crabbe: A person who, without lawful justification or excuse, does an act knowing that death or gbh will
probably result, is guilty of murder if death in fact results.
➢ Mere knowledge that death or gbh will possibly result is not enough.
➢ Indifference, of whether death or gbh is caused, is irrelevant.
➢ Imputed knowledge by wilful blindness is not enough; but deliberate abstention from inquiry might be evidence
of the accused’s actual knowledge.
❖ R v Faure: ‘Probable’ means a substantial, or real and not remote, chance, whether or not it is more than 50%.
➢ Juries are not to be directed in terms of statistical probability.
➢ Whether the accused recklessly murdered or not is determined by:
▪ the accused’s subjective perception of death or gbh resulting; and
▪ the dangerousness of the accused’s act.
➢ Wilful risking of life by accused is a crime for policy reasons → As a matter of law, it is probable that death or
gbh will result from the accused’s very dangerous act of pulling the trigger at another (even though the
mathematical probability of discharge & harm may be low).
➢ *D claimed that V agreed that they would fire no more than 2 shots at each other from a 6-shot revolver that
contained 4 bullets.
➢ *Cylinder was spun each time before pressing trigger, with D believing that the empty chambers would always
rest at the top of the barrel after each spin.
➢ *On the 4th time, the gun fired and killed V.
➢ In a re-trial, Brooking JA did not expect a jury to have any difficulty concluding that D’s act was dangerous in the
sense necessary for reckless murder.
Contemporaneity
❖ Fowler v Paget: Requisite fault element and the act causing death must coincide in time.
❖ Thabo Meli: In a series of acts to achieve a particular objective according to a preconceived plan, contemporaneity is
established if the physical and fault elements for murder existed anytime during the criminal enterprise.
➢ *D had a preconceived plan to kill V.
➢ *D invited V to drink, and struck V on the head with intention to kill.
➢ *Believing V to be dead, D then rolled unconscious V off a cliff without intention to kill.
➢ *V died of exposure from being rolled off the cliff.
➢ Striking & rolling of V were acts part of a preconceived plan → an indivisible transaction.
➢ During this enterprise, D intended to kill and in fact kills V → physical & fault elements coincided (because D
possessed the requisite fault element at the time he started the series of acts that caused V’s death).
➢ The crime is not lessened merely because D was under a misapprehension, for a time during the completion of his
criminal plot, that his violent objective had been achieved before it actually was.
❖ R v Le Brun: Where the unlawful application of force and the eventual act causing death are parts of the same
transaction, the necessary mental state and the act which causes death need not strictly coincide in a point of time.
➢ *D struck V down without intending to seriously harm.
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