R v Cunningham

Facts

The defendant struck another man in an attack in which the victim died. He was charged with murder. The case turned on the mental element, since the issue was whether he could be convicted of murder if he intended to cause really serious harm to the victim without intending to kill.

History

He was convicted of murder at trial. His appeal against conviction failed in the Court of Appeal and he appealed to the House of Lords on the point of law on the mental element of murder.

Issue

Whether intention to cause grievous bodily harm, in the sense of really serious harm, is a sufficient mental element for murder, or whether murder also requires that the defendant intended death or foresaw death as a likely consequence.

Held

Appeal dismissed and the murder conviction upheld. Intention to cause really serious bodily harm is enough for murder.

Ratio

• The mental element of murder is satisfied by an intention to kill or an intention to cause really serious bodily harm. Foresight that death might result is not required where the defendant intended to cause really serious harm.
• Grievous bodily harm in this context means really serious harm, and the jury should be directed accordingly.

Key reasoning

• The rule that an intent to do grievous bodily harm supplies malice aforethought has been part of the common law of murder for a long time and the House had already treated it as settled in earlier authority.
• An attempt to confine murder to cases of intention to kill or foresight of death would be a change that goes beyond the proper role of the court and should be left to Parliament.

Where it fits in the module

In the Homicide topic the case anchors the debate about the fault element of murder: whether it should be limited to intention to kill, or extended to intention to cause serious harm, and whether it is fair to label a person a murderer who did not mean to kill. It should be read with the reform proposals of the Law Commission, which have recommended narrowing the rule, and with the later House of Lords decision in Woollin, which controls how intention is found.

Criticisms

• The rule makes a person a murderer without any intention to kill or foresight of death, which departs from the principle that the label and sentence for the gravest crime should match the culpability of intending or foreseeing death.
• The principle sits in uneasy company with the rule on intention in other offences, since the harm intended is different from the harm that results, and it makes the result depend on what the victim happened to suffer.
• Because Parliament has left the rule untouched despite repeated proposals for reform, the position rests on a judicial rule that could be restated with a narrower fault element, and critics argue that the House should have said so.