Principles of criminal liability: Causation rules

This is a tutorial covering rules relating to establishing causation where there is a result crime (OCR - murder, manslaughter, non fatal offences).

[nntriyeboahowusu]

Thanks for the tutorials. Although Dave would have most likely died independent of the shooting, Reginald's actions did accelerate his death. In Dyson(1908) a father's beating of his son cause him to suffer severe injuries which ultimately lead to his death. It was established by way of medical evidence that the son would have died not long from meningitis. On upholding his conviction of manslaughter, the court held that it was enough that he accelerated his son's death. How do we reconcile this? Perhaps the time involved until Dave meets his impending impact death is so limited that the accelerated death wouldn't matter!

[bettytuwai]

Thank you so much for this. Very informative 👏 👌

[subzerovsscorpion]

Thank you so much for this video! Really helpful 🤍

[licorice]

Great video thank you. So in your opinion regarding the classic Empire State problem, would you say neither Louis or Reg would be liable as their acts both fail the legal causation but for test? Or, would you say Reg is more liable as his act was the real operative cause which broke Louis’ chain? Or, thirdly, would you suggest Reg was liable for manslaughter for recklessly firing a weapon on the basis of the operative cause test but without intent to kill (as he probably wouldn’t know that he would hit Dave’s falling body). To me it seems like a manslaughter charge for Reg seems plausible and Louis by a freak technical legal loophole relating to causation would be acquitted.