Pros And Cons Of Unlawful Killing

Murder - Without Book or Card:

Murder is regarded by many as the most immoral crime a person can commit; in a legal setting it is an example of unlawful killing and is defined, by Sir Coke, as "the unlawful killing of a reasonable person in being who is under the [monarch's] peace, with malice aforethought, express or implied".

The actus reus of murder is the unlawful killing of a reasonable person in being who is under the monarch's peace.

To break it down:

An unlawful killing is quite simply a killing which is not considered lawful. There are only a few situations in which one person killing another is lawful, these include a soldier killing an enemy solider in a time of war, and a person killing in self-defence where such force is considered

Causation comes in two forms, and both are required. They are factual causation (the "but-for" test), and legal causation.

Factual causation asks whether, "but for" the defendant's actions, would the victim have suffered the same result? This is illustrated in the cases of White - where the victim died of natural causes before the poison could take effect; and in the controversial case of Pagett, where it was decided "but for" the defendant's actions the victim would not have died.

Legal causation requires that the death be the "operating and substantial" cause of death. In the case of Cato, this is defined to mean that the defendant's actions are a "more than minimal" cause of death.

Intervening acts can sometimes break the chain of causation, they can happen in the case of a third party (although these rarely break the chain unless it was foreseeable that such a thing would happen), by the victim's own actions, or through medical