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Voluntary manslaughter - Coggle Diagram
Voluntary manslaughter
Loss of control and diminished responsibility are defences, not offences, so there are no actus reus or mens rea elements. They are special, and partial defences to murder only i.e. they cannot be used for any other crime, and they reduce a murder conviction to one of voluntary manslaughter
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Loss of control
Unlike diminished responsibility which simply amended the existing law, this is a totally new defence. It replaced the previous defence of provocation. Be aware of Lord Thomas CJ in R v Gurpinar and Kojo-Smith who stated ‘it should rarely be necessary to look at cases decided under the old law of provocation’
Loss of control is defined in s54 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009
there is a three-stage test:
- the defendant must loose control
- because of a qualifying trigger, and
- a person of their sex, and age, with a normal degree of tolerance, might have reacted in the same way in the same circumstances
a key case here is R v Clinton
Section 55
The defence is not available to tho use who acted in a considered desire for revenge (s54(4)) even if the defendant looses self-control as a result of one of the qualifying triggers R V Dawes
Sexual infidelity cannot by itself qualify as a trigger, but it can be taken into account as part of a bigger picture R v Clinton
This section defines what is meant by ‘qualifying trigger’
- it can be the defendants fear of serious violence from the victim though this violence cannot be incited by the defendant- see s55(6)(a) the defendant will have to show that they genuinely feared that the victim would use serious violence, whether or not that fear was reasonable. This is known as the ‘fear trigger’
- alternatively, it can be something done and/or said by the victim that constituted circumstances or an extremely grave character (the breakdown of a relationship, is not, by itself, sufficient- R v Hatter and caused the defendant to have a justified sense of being wronged (in R v Bowyer the D has no justifiable sense of being wronged, given that he was committing a burglary at the time of the offence) this i for the jury to determine having applied an objective test. This is known as the ‘anger trigger’
Also ‘things said’ can include an admissions of sexual infidelity (even if untrue) as well as reports of it by others
Section 54(1)(c)
This section requires that a person of the defendants sex and age, with a normal degree of tolerance and self restraint and in the circumstances of the defendant, might have reacting in the same or a similar way. This is a question for the jury to decide
Addition characteristics may be relevant when assessing the circumstance of the defendant, and the impact on the defendant of infidelity is not excludes, although under s54(3) circumstances which relate to the defendants general capacity to excercise tolerance and self restraint are to be disregarded
Burden of proof
Once the defence has been raised, the burden of disproof is on the prosecution
Section 54(1)(b)
It does not matter whether or not the loss of control was sudden, but control must be lost. It can still be put before a jury even where there has been a delay between the trigger incident and the murder
In R v Jewell Lady Justice Rafferty held ‘loss of control is considered by the authors of Smith and Hogan 13th edition to mean the loss of an ability to act in accordance with considered judgement or a loss of normal powers of reasoning’