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JCL 74 (2010) 127

Single-act Propensity
Roderick Munday

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 expanded the range of situations in which evidence of defendants' bad character can become admissible in criminal trials. In R v Hanson (2005), in the first appeals brought under the new legislation, the Court of Appeal supplied general guidance on how trial courts were to construe the principal provisions. In relation to gateway (d) the court declared: ¿there is no minimum number of events necessary to demonstrate¿ an accused's propensity. A single item of misconduct might therefore suffice. When the Act first came into force, some prosecutors undoubtedly sought to exploit the bad character provisions to the full. This article reviews one, admittedly, artificial category of cases, where the Crown has sought to adduce only single acts of misconduct, in order to derive some idea of how expansively or restrictively the courts, and more especially the Court of Appeal, in practice interpret the bad character.

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JCL 74 (2010) 145

Problems of Transferred Malice in Multiple-actor Scenarios
Michael Bohlander

Transferred malice is a well-known concept that allows the extension of an offender's intent to a victim or object hit accidentally because the offender missed his intended target. Coupled to this doctrine is the annex doctrine of transferred defences which purports to transfer any defence the offender may have had vis-à-vis his intended victim to the actual victim. These doctrines cause systemic problems in single-actor scenarios, but those are increased exponentially if one applies them to multiple-actor situations, where the principles from Saunders and Archer apply which transpose the transferred malice doctrine to the secondary participant as long as the principal missed his target accidentally. The transferred defences doctrine has not been explored in these cases at all, as far as can be seen. This article examines the traditional doctrine and argues that based on a number of problematic constellations and a comparison to German law, it is in need of systematisation and clarification, and that the approach under Saunders and Archer is no longer fit for purpose.

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JCL 74 (2010) 163

Liability for Manslaughter by Omission: Don¿t Let the Baby Drown!
Claire Elliott

By removing the common law rules on a duty to act from liability for manslaughter by omission, the law would more accurately reflect the intention of the House of Lords in R v Adomako (1995). The current duplicitous requirement of both a duty to act and a duty of care appears to be confusing both the trial judge and the jury. The causing of a harm by an omission does not automatically mean the conduct was less morally reprehensible than where harm is caused by an act and this reform would therefore potentially bring the law more closely into line with society¿s moral values. The law would be rendered clearer and simpler and injustices would be avoided due to the other requirements of the Law Commission's proposed offence of killing by gross carelessness, including causation and gross carelessness. Through this reform justice could at last be offered should a stranger choose to walk by a drowning baby.

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Links to other issues

Volume 65 (2001) :   1   2   3   4   5   6

Volume 66 (2002) :   1   2   3   4   5   6

Volume 67 (2003) :   1   2   3   4   5   6

Volume 68 (2004) :   1   2   3   4   5   6

Volume 69 (2005) :   1   2   3   4   5   6

Volume 70 (2006) :   1   2   3   4   5   6

Volume 71 (2007) :   1   2   3   4   5   6

Volume 72 (2008) :   1   2   3   4   5   6

Volume 73 (2009) :   1   2   3   4   6

Volume 74 (2010) :   1   2   3   4

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