Involuntary Manslaughter Essay (Essay Sample)

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Involuntary Manslaughter
An involuntary manslaughter (IM) is a criminal act that occurs when a person causes the death without the intent to cause or even harm the victim. In the English law, involuntary manslaughter is a crime contained in the Homicide Act of 1957 (legislation.gov.uk). The state’s duty to defend the dead, whether the cause of death was intentional or otherwise, is defined in Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Involuntary manslaughter is similar to murder, only that an accused person in murder case intended to do so with full mens rea. While the sentence in murder cases is defined, sentences in involuntary manslaughter are at the discretion of the jury and are usually lenient. The following is a deeper look at the features that distinguishes an involuntary manslaughter.
There are two types of IM, distinguished by the circumstance of occurrence. The first type, called the constructive manslaughter, takes place when the death is as a result of unlawful action of the accused. Constructive manslaughter is distinguished by three major elements; firstly, there has to be an illegal act that led to the death of a person. For instance, the death could result from a fight that is an unlawful act. In R v Jones [2009], for example, the appellant and the deceased engaged in a fight. The appellant was found guilty of manslaughter and was condemned to a four years jail term.
Secondly, the act must have involved a foreseeable risk, that is, it should be known that the action is can harm a human being. It should be an activity that a reasonable person would, under ordinary circumstance consider risky. In particular, the defendant should be aware that his actions posed a threat to the deceased. This was demonstrated by the judges in R v Carey, C and F [2006] where a teenage girl had died after running hysterically to escape a physical assault caused by the appellant. However, the court of appeal found that the physical assault was not the cause of death but rather, the run as the girl had an underlying congenital heart disease. The appellant in this case did not know that it was risky to the girl to run.
Lastly, the accused person must have been cognizant that the act, which caused the death of the deceased, was unlawful. In R v Rodgers [2003], for example, the appeal court upheld an earlier ruling that the defendant engaged in an unlawful act which led to the death of the deceased. In this case, the appellant had assisted his deceased friend to administer heroin on himself by holding a tourniquet for him. The deceased died of a heart attack that was aggravated by the drug injection. The judges held that the respondent was cognizant of the fact that heroin abuse was illegal.
Aside from the constructive manslaughter, there are involuntary manslaughters caused by negligence acts of an appellant, described as manslaughter by gross negligence. These are cases in which the death occurs as a result of the defendant’s lack of due care. These cases require the judge to be convinced that the defendant was negligent and that his act of negligence resul...