Odger's English Common Law

Chapter II.
MURDER.
Every homicide is prima facie murder ; for every man is
presumed to have known and to have intended the natural
and necessary consequences of his act. It lies on the accused,
therefore, to reduce his offence from murder to manslaughter,
or to excuse or justify it. "When any man
takes away the life of another, the law presumes that
he did it of malice aforethought, unless there be evidence
to show the contrary." 1 " Where it appears that one
person's death has been occasioned by the hand of another,
it behoves that other "to show from evidence, or by
inference from the circumstances of the case, that the
offence is of a mitigated character and does not amount
to the crime of murder." 2
Hence it is for the person, who
is proved to have caused the death of another, to bring
forward evidence of any facts on which he relies to reduce
the crime from murder to any lesser degree of homicide. If
such evidence be tendered, it is for the jury to decide whether
the facts alleged did really occur. On these facts, assuming
them to have occurred, it is for the judge to direct the jury
whether the prisoner should be convicted of murder or man-
slaughter, or is entitled to be acquitted altogether. In cases
of doubt or difficulty, the jury may state the facts and
circumstances in a special verdict, as they did in the case
of shipwrecked mariners who killed a boy to preserve their
own lives. 3
If any man unlawf ally causes the death of another with
malice aforethought express or implied, he is guilty of the
i Per Rolfe, B., in B. v. KeUy (1848), 2 0. & K. at p. 815.
2 Per Tindal, C. J., in R. v. Oreenaere (1837), 8 0. & P. at p. 42.
9 B. v. Dudley and, Stephens (1884), 14 Q. B. B. 273.