lc290 Partial Defences to Murder report - Law Commission

PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF MURDER
2.19 There is no doubt that some cases of alleged murder arouse public passions to a
far greater degree than any other offence. Public attention naturally tends to
focus on the most lurid or shocking cases.
2.20 We have discovered in the course of this consultation that there is profound
ignorance of the breadth of unlawful and lethal conduct which falls within the
meaning of murder, and of the circumstances in which certain defences, such as
self-defence, may succeed. This is unsurprising as the classic description of
murder as “unlawful killing … with malice aforethought”, which is the most
resonant phrase associated with the offence, is completely misleading as to the
range of conduct which may constitute the offence. A person may be guilty of
murder even though he neither intended to kill nor acted in a premeditated way.
2.21 Given that public perceptions about what murder involves are inaccurate and
unrealistic, we suspected that public debate about the appropriate sentencing
regime for murder might be conducted in equally distorted and unrealistic terms.
With a view to ascertaining what properly informed public reactions might be to a
range of conduct which would be capable of constituting murder as the law
presently stands, we commissioned Professor Barry Mitchell of Coventry
University to undertake the qualitative public attitude research which forms
Appendix C to this report. In this Part we draw certain conclusions from that
research.
Conclusions to be drawn from Professor Mitchell’s research
2.22 Professor Mitchell presented his interviewees with 10 scenarios and with
variations in respect of some of them. In each case the defendant could,
presently, have been convicted of murder in which case he or she would have
received a mandatory life sentence. It is clear that the interviewees considered
these instances as representing a very wide spectrum of culpability.
Can we ascertain any features which place an offence at the more heinous
end of the spectrum?
PREMEDITATION
2.23 One feature which seems to have been regarded as marking an offence out as
more serious than others was that of premeditation. It is present in its unalloyed
form in scenario E (“the contract killing”). 19 It is also present in scenario H (“the
jealous husband”) 20 where the form of killing (by poisoning) seems to enhance its
gravity. Similarly the two versions of scenario J (“the cuckolded husband” and
19 A man agreed to kill his victim for £5,000, and carried out his part of that agreement two
days later. (Payment of the £5,000 was the only reason for the killing.)
20 A man was told by his wife that as soon as their children had left home she would leave
him and live with another man whom she’d known for many years. He brooded on this for
four weeks and then killed her by poisoning her tea. He said he couldn’t bear the thought
of her being with another man, and psychiatrists reported that he suffered from an extreme
form of jealousy.
14