Cont: s.300 murder

Murder – s.300

In English Law, the mens rea for murder is foresight. In Malaysia, the Code has provided the mens rea of intention and knowledge for s.300. In R v Nedrick, the accused wanted to frighten the adult resident by setting fire in the letterbox but resulted in a fire which killed a child. The court used the foresight test and convicted the accused for murder.

Time of death

The longer it takes for the victim to die, the harder it is for the prosecution to prove that the accused had committed the murder since it gives a bigger time frame for intervening acts to occur.

Proving intention and knowledge

The prosecution must prove the physical and fault elements of the offence beyond a reasonable doubt, and must do so according to the prevailing rules of evidence.

Culpable homicide or murder?

The trier of fact must determine the fault element by inference from all relevant and admissible evidence, and taking account of relevant personal characteristics of the accused. The evidence may include the accused’s evidence in court, what they said at the time, what they told police and what other witnesses say. It will also include the nature of the acts themselves; for example, the type of weapon that was used (if any), the nature, location and number of injuries inflicted on the victim, and the way the injuries were inflicted.

PP v Mahfar bin Sairan and Ismail bin Hussin v PP as stated above.

Intention should be distinguished from premeditation. A person can form an intention to kill on the spur of the moment as shown in Ismail bin Hussin.

s.300(a) and s.300(b)

s.300(a) is the same as the first limb of s.299 (only intention) and s.300(b) encompasses both intention and knowledge as its mens rea as compared to the 2^nd limb of s.299. S.300(b) is rarely invoked in practice.

s.300(c)

In order to prove s.300(c), the prosecution has to prove that the accused had only the intention to cause bodily injury (not death) and the injury that he caused was intended and the nature of the injury should have been such that it ultimately resulted in the death of the victim. Therefore, this section could cover a situation where death did not take place immediately but eventually the victim dies due to the bodily injury.

Virsa Singh v State of Punjab

The prosecution must prove the following:

i) It must establish, quite objectively, that a bodily injury is present

ii) The nature of the injury must be proved; these are purely objective investigations.

iii) It must be proved that there was an intention to inflict that particular bodily injury, that is to say that it was not accidental or unintentional, or that some other kind of injury was intended...

iv) It must be proved that the injury of the type just described made up of the three elements set out above is sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature. This part of the enquiry is purely objective and inferential and has nothing to do with the intention of the offender.

PP v Visuvanathan

In this case, the stab wound was very severe and the court held that it was intended and sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. All that the prosecution needed to prove is:

(a) that the accused did an act which caused the death of the deceased;

(b) that the said act was done with the intention of causing bodily injury;

(c) that the injury caused-

i) was intended and was not accidental or otherwise unintentional and;

ii) was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death.

s.300(d)

The mens rea for this subsection is only knowledge. S.300(d) restricts liability for murder based on knowledge to cases where there is no ‘excuse for incurring the risk of causing death’.

Emperor v Dhirajia

The accused was a mother, frequently abused by her husband. One night, she heard footsteps behind her, panicked and jumped down a well with her baby resulting in the baby’s death. She was charged for murder but the court allowed her appeal because she had an ‘excuse’ for jumping into the well.