Odger's English Common Law

HOMICIDE OR CAUSING DEATH. 273
a fight ensues in the course of which A. is mortally wounded, the prisoner
has caused A.'s death ; for A.'s resistance and death are the natural
consequences of the attempt to rob him, which the prisoner had directly
instigated.
It is also necessary to prove that the deceased died within
a year and a day after the prisoner's act, which caused the
death. If a longer time elapses, the law will presume that
the death was due to some other cause. 1
Homicide is of four kinds :
—
(1) Murder; where a man unlawfully causes the death of
another with malice aforethought, express or implied.
(2) Manslaughter ; where a man unlawfully causes the
death of another, but without malice aforethought, express or
implied.
(3) Justifiable ; where death is lawfully inflicted.
(4) Excusable ; where death is accidental.
In class (3) the death is always intentional, in class (1) it is
almost always so, in class (4)
manslaughter it may be either intentional or unintentional
it is always unintentional ; in
the prisoner may have intended to kill the deceased, but
under great provocation ; or he may have caused the death
involuntarily, while doing an unlawful act, or doing a lawful
act negligently.
Murder and manslaughter are both felonies
;
2 they will be
dealt with in Chapters II. and III. Non-felonious homicide
is discussed in Chapter IV.
1 R. v. Dyson, [1908] 2 K. B. 454. " In oomputiDg the period, the day on which
the injury is inflicted is to be counted as the first day : " Fitzjames Stephen's Digest
of the Criminal Law, 6th ed., Article 242.
2 See indictments, Nos. 19—21, in the Appendix.
B.C.L.
18
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