General Elements of Liability and the Elements of a Crime: Causation

Causation

• In order to prove someone guilty of a crime where a consequence is required (e.g murder where there has to be a dead body) then it has to be proved that the defendant caused that consequence
• Without this, in many circumstances the defendant would be found not guilty
• The defendant's conduct must be:
• The factual cause of the consequence
• The legal cause of the consequence
• AND there must be no intervening act which breaks the chain of causation

Factual Causation

• There are two tests to prove factual causation:
• the 'but for' test
• but for the actions of the defendant, the victim would not have died as and when they did
• White (1910)
• Defendant poisoned his mum
• The poison didn't kill her, but a heart attack did (she went to sleep and never woke up)
• The defendant was therefore not liable for murder; he was liable for attempt
• This case established the 'but for' test
• Dalloway (1847)
• Defendant was driving a horse and cart down the road without holding the reins
• A child ran out in front of the cart and was killed
• The defendant was not liable, as he would not have been able to stop the cart in time, even if he had been holding the reins
• Paggett (1983)
• The appellant (31) used his pregnant, 16 year old girlfriend as a human shield against police fire
• He was convicted of manslaughter, as his firing at the police officers caused them to fire back (it was dark and they could not see the girl). It was his using the girl as a shield that killed her
• the de minimis rule:
• the defendant's actions must be more than just a minimal cause of the death but need not be substantial
• Kimsey (1996)
• Jury can be told that instead of using the 'de minimis' phrase, there must be "more than a slight or trifling link"

Legal Causation

• This can be satisfied by proving any of the following:
• that the original act was an operative and substantial cause of the consequence
• that the intervening act was reasonably foreseeable
• the thin skull test

Operative and Substantial

• This is frequently looked at with homicide cases where the original injury must be an operative and substantial cause of the death
• It frequently looks at medical treatment creating an intervening act

Medical Treatment

• Medical treatment rarely breaks the chain of causation
• It needs to be proved that the treatment was so independent of the defendant's actions that it actually had a greater effect on the consequence than the defendant's actions thus making the defendant's actions insignificant
• Smith (1959)
• Significantly poor medical treatment but original wounds were still operative and substantial so the defendant remained liable for the death
• Cheshire (1993)
• The defendant only had to contribute significantly to the death. His actions did not need to be the sole cause
• Jordan (1956)
• Original wounds were nearly healed and victim was given 'palpably wrong' medical treatment so the defendant was not liable
• In Smith and Cheshire the doctors were trying to save the victims' lives - they wouldn't have required treatment without the defendant's actions. In Jordan the injuries had virtually healed
• The case of Malcherek (1981) showed that switching off a life support machine will not break the chain of causation
• The defendant stabbed his wife. She was on life support but found to be brain dead so the doctors switched it off
• He was found guilty of murder

Intervening Acts

• Causation is like a chain, There must be a direct link between the act of the defendant and the final consequence
• The chain can be broken by another act that occurs between the original act and the consequence (it's called an intervening act) - Novus actus interveniens
• Intervening acts can be
• an act of a third party
• the victim's own act
• a natural and unpredictable event
• The intervening act must be sufficiently independent of the defendant's actions and sufficiently serious to break the chain
• Pagett (1983)
• action of police in returning fire was forseeable
• The victim's own acts have the potential to break the chain of causation unless they are reasonably forseeable
• Roberts (1971)
• Roberts gave the victim (a stranger) a lift
• After they refused his sexual advances, Roberts drove off at speed
• In order to escape, the victim jumped from the moving car and sustained actual bodily harm
• Roberts was found guilty of ABH, as the victim´s actions were neither daft, nor so unexpected that no reasonable man would have acted in the same way
• Escaping does not break the chain of causation, unless it is ´daft´ in the eyes of the jury
• Marjoram (2000)
• Defendant forced their way into a girl´s room on the third floor of a hostel
• She either jumped or fell out of the window in fear ' she fell 47 feet and sustained life-threatening injuries
• Defendant convicted of GBH
• William (1992)
• Defendants picked up hitchhiker
• They were trying to rob him, so he jumped out of the moving car at 30mph, hit his head, and died
• They were convicted of constructive manslaughter
• The victim's actions have to be in proportion to the threat

Thin Skull Test

• The defendant must take the victim as they find them
• If the defendant hits the victim over the head with a blow that would usually cause no real harm but the victim has an unusually thin skull and dies, then the defendant is liable
• Blaue (1975)
• Defendant stabbed a girl four times when she refused to have sex with him (sounds like an incel to me)
• She was a Jehovah's witness and refused a blood transfusion that would've saved her life
• Defendant convicted of manslaughter
• He argued that she only died because she wouldn't have the blood transfusion
• Conviction upheld. She died because she was stabbed, not because she was a Jehovah's witness

Problems with causation

• The "more than a slight or trifling link" referred to in Kimsey (1996) is very vague
• If the victim refuses medical treatment that would save them, should the defendant be liable?
• The thin skull test means that the defendant is convicted of murder when there was no intention to kill