'Causation and Intervening Acts in Criminal Law Essay\r'

' check to Robin J.A. in Malette v Shulman[1], â€Å"the the sound flair of self-determination which underlies the doctrine of intercommunicate restrain on also obviously encompasses the right to refuse aesculapian give-and-take. A fitting adult is prevalently entitled to jib a specific treatment or all treatment, or to select an jump out form of treatment, even if the decisiveness may entail risks as near as last…The doctrine of certain accept is plainly intended to ensure the emancipation of undivideds to make fillings concerning their medical checkup exam care. For this sinlessdom to be meaningful, people essential give up the right to make choices that accord with their own look on regardless of how unwise or err atomic number 53ous those choices may appear to others.”[2] R v Blaue[3], a famous causation slip-up in whitlow law, brings to foreground a thought-provoking debate about whether an individual’s spectral article of faith s and other mental value could be included in the ‘ snub skull’ figure and whether the refusal to persuade carriagesaving medical treatment cut offs the fibril of causation that exists amid the defendant’s wrongdoing and the purported burden of that wrongdoing.\r\nThe items of the case are as follows †Blaue, the defendant, stabbed a woman numerous times after(prenominal) she refused to adjudge sexual intercourse with him. She was a Jehovah’s trial runify and was wherefore not in favour of roue blood transfusions. After the stabbing, she was taken to a hospital and was told that she urgently needed to have a personal credit line transfusion, without which she would die. Owing to her apparitional tenets, she refused to consent with the suggested treatment. As a firmness, she died in the hospital. opus giving the judgment, Lawton L.J. stated that â€Å"those who use force out on other people must(prenominal)(prenominal) take their dupes as they bump them.”[4] This, accord to him, not only includes victims’ forcible char runeristics, still also their emotional, psychological and spiritual values and beliefs. This finale has proved to be exceedingly controversial and gives rise to various debates. near look the rationale behind the greet’s judgment and agree that the defendant is, as a matter of f act as, criminally reasonable for do the injury. After all, the victim was at the receiving end of several stabbings, oblige by the defendant, who distinctly had an intention of causing good bodily harm, if not death. However, most feel that the death was the result of the victim’s refusal to carry out the blood transfusion.\r\nThey feel that the defendant should not be responsible for the unusual, irrational and unjustified religious beliefs of the victim. In addition, the defendant could not have possibly preventn her backing out of receiving medical treatment in the hospital. The Blaue case creates numerous doubts about the doctrine of causation in criminal law. Was Blaue responsible for the victim’s death or was it an act of the victim, since it was her decision to refuse a blood transfusion? If we conclude that Blaue is indeed responsible for her death, other capitulum comes to mind: Why is the victim not responsible for her own death? First and foremost, it is a fact that the victim sustained injuries out-of-pocket to numerous stabbings and it was Blaue who had inflicted them upon her. Her not taking each steps to carry on herself did not instigate her death.\r\nSecondly, on that point is an act of the ‘thin skull’ rule in this case. An classic principle of the law of causation is that defendants must ‘take their victims as they find them.’ This authority that if a defendant pushes someone and be perform they have a thin skull, they crack their principal sum and die, the defendant will be lia ble for causing their death. The Court of Appeal in Blaue indicated that the decision could be seen as a ‘thin skull’ theoretical account. It was established that the ‘thin skull’ rule goes beyond the fleshly characteristics of individuals, also including a person’s virtuous and religious beliefs. Thirdly, the victim’s decision to not undergo blood transfusion, which would have clearly saved her life-time, was based on fundamental religious views and hence, did not constitute a novus actus interveniens. That is, it was not an intervening act. Nevertheless, the judgment has been critisised on various grounds. Why was the victim’s decision to refuse medical treatment seen as a subsisting condition sort of than an intervening cause?\r\nWould it have been the similar if the refusal was due to a fear of needles or the fact that she could not bear the ache and thought dying was the only way to end the agony? A decision steered by reli gious beliefs is a moral choice, that is, a free decision. Why should the defendant endure the responsibility if the victim makes a free choice to kill herself any to a greater extent than he should if, weakened by the injury, the victim took a controversial choice to end her life with dignity instead than enduring pain and life-long humiliation? Thus, to understand the Blaue case, we not only need to take into account causation in criminal law, just also the two doctrines which arrest to the concept of proximate causation; the ‘thin skull’ rule and the principle of novus actus interveniens. Causation †In criminal law, individuals that are guilty of a crime are penalised for the harm they cause if both the physical and the mental instalment of committing an offence is bribe. There must be a valid connection amid an individual’s conduct and the result alleged to constitute an offence. The causation indispensableness attaches criminal responsibility to those individuals whose conduct is decent enough to bring about serious bodily injury or death. In Hallett[5], the accused assaulted a man and go forth him on a beach.\r\nOver the undermentioned few hours, the man drowned. The philander cerebrate that Hallett’s contribution to his death was to a greater extent than minimal to hold him responsible for it. However, in Blaue, the defendant was found to be the certain and operating cause of the woman’s death. That is, his stabbings is why she was admitted to a hospital in the first place. ‘Thin skull’ rule †The defendant must take the victim as he finds him or her and this means ‘the wholly man and not just the physical man.’ This rule applies irrespective of whether the defendant is aware(p) of the condition in the victim. On one hand, there are instances where the victim suffers from a pre-existing condition which renders him or her more vulnerable to injuries. On the other hand, th ere are cases where the victim does not take medical treatment to heal piques and suffers serious harm as a result. A defendant cannot escape liability for a victim’s death as a result of an abnormality present in the victim or an immanent, subsisting belief of the victim.\r\nIt is his fault that he caused harm in the first place. In R v Hayward[6], a man chased his married woman into the street shouting threats and kicked her. She collapsed and died from an unusual thyroid condition which made her susceptible to physical exertion and fear. He was convicted of manslaughter because he aggravated her pre-existing condition by physically assaulting her. This case is a good example of the ‘thin skull’ rule applying to the physical characteristics of an individual. The fact that he could not possibly foresee her dying is not an excuse. However, can a victim’s religious beliefs constitute a thin skull? With reference to Blaue, fit to Hart and Honoré: â⠂¬Å"The question is not whether it is reasonable to believe that blood transfusion is wrong, but whether a person whose life is in danger can moderately be expected to evacuate a firmly held religious belief. The answer must be surely no.”[7] phantasmal beliefs and convictions are an internal characteristic of individuals, which is deeply rooted in their way of view and life. It is intrinsic to every person.\r\nHence, people cannot be held legally accountable for possessing much(prenominal) sentiments. Novus Actus Interveniens †The general principle is that an intervention by a third party will break the ambit of causation if it is ‘free, deliberate and informed.’ In R v Kennedy[8], Kennedy prepared a syringe for the victim, who injected himself and died due to an overdose. Kennedy was convicted of illegitimate manslaughter. The act of the victim, in injecting himself with the medicate, was an intentional, free, deliberate and an informed action. Thus , the drug dealer is not guilty of unlawful manslaughter. In contrast, in R v effective[9], the defendant slashed the victim repeatedly with a knife. The victim died two long time later. The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, arguing that the chain of causation had been broken because the victim had move suicide either by reopening his wounds or because he had failed to take steps to hobble the blood flow after the wounds had reopened themselves.\r\nThe court dismissed the appeal and held that the real question was whether the injuries inflicted by the defendant were a significant and operating cause of the death. The victim’s death resulted from excessive bleeding from the artery, which was triggered by the defendant when he attacked the victim. In Blaue, the refusal to repay treatment does not break the chain of causation, despite the fact that it was informed and deliberate, because having such a belief is involuntary and requisite. According to Ha rt and Honoré, â€Å"the question to be decided is whether the decision to refuse treatment is not merely deliberate and informed but also a free one. In view of the high value attached in our society to the matters of conscience, the victim, though free to accept any belief she wished, is not thereafter free to abandon her chosen belief merely because she finds herself in a situation in which her life may otherwise be in danger.\r\nSo it was not her free act to refuse a transfusion.”[10] It was reasonably foreseeable that a Jehovah’s Witness would refuse a blood transfusion. The victim had no choice due to her religion. It was not a free decision because, in a way, she was bound by it. It could be said that she simply let the wound take its natural course. Moreover, the death was caused due to the bleeding arising from the penetration of the lungs, which was brought about by the stabbings. The substantial and operating cause test does not take into account a victim ’s distinct characteristic. So long as victim died of internal bleeding due to the wound administered by Blaue, we need not ask get ahead questions.\r\nHowever, if the principle of ‘taking your victims as you find them, including their beliefs’ is applied to more cases, it would have varying results. Let’s assume that X assaults Y. Y ends up committing suicide because she is mentally unstable or because she hopes to get X behind bars. Another example could be that X shoots Y on his left(p) leg. Y could go to the hospital but decides to remove the bullet by himself. otiose to do so and still refusing medical treatment, he dies. Should X ‘take’ Y’s unstable, vengeful or thoughtless behaviour? Is that justified or is it unfair?\r\nâ€â€â€â€â€â€â€â€â€â€â€\r\n[ 1 ]. Malette v Shulman [1991] 2 Med LR 162.\r\n[ 2 ]. Jerome Edmund Bickenback, Canadian cases in the philosophy of law, fourth edition, at 160 t o 161. [ 3 ]. R v Blaue [1975] 1 WLR 1411.\r\n[ 4 ]. Michael T. Molan, Sourcebook on Criminal Law, 2nd edition, at 67. [ 5 ]. Hallett [1969] SASR 141.\r\n[ 6 ]. R v Hayward (1908) 21 Cox 692.\r\n[ 7 ]. Denis Klimchuk, Causation, Thin Skulls and par (1998) at pg. 126. [ 8 ]. R v Kennedy [2007] UKHL 38.\r\n[ 9 ]. R v Dear [1996] Crim LR 595.\r\n[ 10 ]. Alan Norrie, Crime, Reason and History: A Critical Introduction to Criminal Law, at pg. 143.\r\n'