Table of Contents Topic 1: Principals of Criminal Responsibility ................................................................................ 1 Children committing criminal offences ...................................................................................... 1 Doli incapax .................................................................................................................. 1 Evidence that a child knew it was wrong ..................................................................... 1 Corporate Criminal Liability ....................................................................................................... 2 Vicarious Liability .......................................................................................................... 2 Direct Liability ............................................................................................................... 3 Corporate Culture.......................................................................................................... 4 Elements of a Crime ................................................................................................................... 5 The physical elements of a crime ................................................................................. 5 A specified form of conduct ............................................................................... 5 Voluntariness ...................................................................................................... 6 Causation ............................................................................................................ 6 The reasonable foreseeability test ....................................................... 7 The substantial cause test ..................................................................... 7 The natural consequence test............................................................... 7 Novus actus interveniens ...................................................................... 8 The acts of the victim (that may break chain of causation) .................. 8 The acts of a third party (that may break chain of causation) .............. 9 Medical Treatment ................................................................. 9 Withdrawing life support ..................................................... 10 The fault elements of a crime .................................................................................... 10 Subjective v Objective fault ........................................................................... 11 Intention ........................................................................................................ 12 Motive & Intention ............................................................................ 12 Direct & Oblique Intention ............................................................... 13 Transferred Invention ....................................................................... 13 Knowledge ........................................................................................ 13 Knowledge & willful blindness .......................................................... 14 Recklessness ..................................................................................... 14 Recklessness & Indifference ............................................................. 15 Recklessness & willful blindness ....................................................... 15 Negligence ..................................................................................................... 16 Strict liability & Absolutely liability offences ........................................................................... 16 Mistake of facts & strict liability offences .................................................................. 18 Mistake rather than ignorance ...................................................................... 18 Mistake of fact ............................................................................................... 19 Honest & reasonable mistake ........................................................... 20 Mistake must render the accused's act innocent ............................. 20 Criminal negligence & due diligence ................................................ 20 Mistake of law ................................................................................................ 21 Knowledge of unlawfulness as a fault element ................................ 21 The defence of claim of right ............................................................ 22 The non-discovery of laws ................................................................ 22 The statutory defence of lawful excuse ............................................ 22 Concurrence of physical & fault elements ............................................................................... 23 Fault element imposed on a 'series of acts' ............................................................... 23 Fault element imposed upon a 'continuing act' ......................................................... 23 Topic 2 – Unlawful Killing ........................................................................................................... 25 Table 1: Physical & Fault elements of murder ......................................................................... 25 Causing the death of a human being ....................................................................................... 26 Physical element of murder & manslaughter ............................................................. 26 A human being ............................................................................................................ 26 Is a feotus a human being? ......................................................................................... 26 The end of life ............................................................................................................. 27 Euthanasia & unlawful killing ......................................................................... 28 Voluntary Euthanasia – the NT experiment................................................... 28 Arguments in favour of voluntary euthanasia ............................................... 29 Beneficence ...................................................................................... 29 Arguments opposing voluntary euthanasia ................................................... 30 "slippery slope" argument ................................................................ 30 Integrity of medical profession & palliative care .............................. 30 Non-voluntary euthanasia ............................................................................. 30 The fault element of murder ...................................................................................... 32 Intention to kill ............................................................................................... 33 Transferred intention........................................................................ 33 Intention to inflict serious bodily harm ......................................................... 33 Recklessness .................................................................................................. 34 Probability ...................................................................................................... 35 Recklessness to inflict GBH ............................................................................ 35 Constructive Murder ................................................................................................... 35 Table 2: Commission of certain offences (different wording) ....................... 35 The specified offences in question ................................................................ 36 Manslaughter .............................................................................................................. 37 Fault element of manslaughter ..................................................................... 37 Unlawful & dangerous act manslaughter ...................................................... 38 Unlawful assault causing death ..................................................................... 38 Unlawful act ................................................................................................... 38 Pemble v the Queen (1971) ............................................................... 40 Dangerous act ................................................................................................ 41 Negligent manslaughter................................................................................. 41 Duty of care ...................................................................................... 42 Standard of care................................................................................ 43 Breach of duty of care ...................................................................... 44 Offences involving death ............................................................................................ 44 Culpable driving ............................................................................................. 44 Table 4: Culpable driving causing death ........................................................ 44 Omissions & unlawful killing .......................................................................... 45 Offences related to suicide ......................................................................................... 46 Assisting or encouraging