Criminal Law (2014): Manslaugther

One day Abezola and Rahama go mountain climbing. Upon reaching the summit Abezola tells Rahama that he is going to kiss her. Rahama, who has strong moral and religious principles, says, “If you do, I shall jump.” Abezola does not believe Rahama, and kisses her. Rahama then jumps off the summit and falls 20 metres on to a ledge. Abezola, thinking Rahama has been killed and that he will be held responsible, carries her to his car, intending to drop her down a disused mine shaft at another location to avoid detection. After travelling a few hundred metres the car is involved in an accident with a drunk driver. When the police arrive Abezola has survived and Rahama is found to be dead. At the post mortem it is discovered that it was the crash and not the fall which killed Rahama.
Discuss Abezola's potential criminal liability.

General remarks
The question is designed to test your ability to structure an answer which contains a number of possible outcomes, particularly liability for homicide, where the issue is causation. On the assumption that the chain of causation is broken, you should discuss any default crime for which Abezola may be liable.

Law cases, reports and other references the Examiners would expect you to use Church, Newbury and Jones, Dawson, Watson, Roberts, Williams, Blaue, Dhaliwal, Kennedy, Lebrun.

Common errors
Many candidates talked almost exclusively about causation in general rather than the crime (manslaughter) of which causation is but an ingredient. Many others began at the wrong end and talked about assault, rather than the right end, namely constructive manslaughter, with assault being the unlawful act to be relied upon in establishing this. Nevertheless, credit was given for the discussion in so far as it is relevant. A significant number of candidates talked about impossible attempts in relation to Abezola’s attempt to dispose of the body. This was not appropriate since to commit an attempt (e.g. attempted murder) requires the defendant to intend to kill by the act.

A good answer to this question would…
include the following indicative elements.

• The kiss.
• Constructive manslaughter:
• The definition – unlawful and dangerous act causing death.
• The unlawful act = common assault in the form of a kiss. Kisses are not (Church) dangerous per se (see e.g. Dawson) but may become so by virtue of context and knowledge (e.g. Watson). On that basis the kiss is dangerous.
• Causation – Abezola's belief is not relevant to causation. The issues are whether the jump breaks the chain of causation and, if it does not (indicative case law: Roberts, Williams, Blaue, Dhaliwal, Kennedy) whether the death by car crash is a novus actus interveniens.
• The position is complicated by the 'supposed corpse' (Thabo Meli) aspect of the case. LeBrun makes clear that in the usual supposed corpse case it is simply a question of causation. Death in the course of clearing up the crime is a link and not a break in the chain. A really good answer will, however, identify Thabo Meli and LeBrun as a possible red herring as here the car crash is an independent and sufficient cause of the death.

Poor answers to this question…
tended to talk almost exclusively about Abezola’s liability for assault or sexual assault without considering manslaughter as a possibility, or simply regurgitated their lecture notes on causation without linking them to a specific crime which Abezola may have committed.