murder and involuntary manslaughter - Law Reform Commission

3.30 Some consultees who believed that no change should be made tosection 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1964 apart from phrasing the provisionin positive terms, nonetheless suggested that if there were to be a proposal tomake some new provision to cover “extreme indifference” killings, a newoffence of “reckless murder” would be conceivable to deal with any casesnot amounting to murder under section 4 where it is established that theaccused took a substantial and unjustifiable risk involving a high degree ofculpability.3.31 To distinguish “reckless murder” from intentional murder it wassuggested that the penalty could be fixed at a maximum of life imprisonmentin the expectation that life would be imposed in the very serious cases, thusdistinguishing it from manslaughter where life sentences are extremely rare.An issue that would arise is the question of alternative verdicts. Forinstance, while it would be logical to allow a verdict of reckless murder on acharge of murder, should a verdict of manslaughter also be available asalternatives to murder? Should both “reckless murder” and manslaughter beavailable as alternatives to murder?3.32 As between reckless murder and manslaughter, while themaximum penalties would be the same the labelling would be different - ie asituation similar to that pertaining to the “rape under section 4” and“aggravated sexual assault” offences which both attract the same penalty, amaximum of life imprisonment. However, while this approach would followthe logic applied to the “rape under section 4” offence, it does not takeaccount of a fundamental difference between the two situations. Section 4behaviour is a distinctive form of aggravated sexual assault, readilydistinguishable from rape and other forms of sexual assault and so it lendsitself more easily to the public need for labelling. It was submitted that thiswould not be the case with “reckless murder” which may not be readilydistinguishable from intentional murder and manslaughter in the publicmind. It may be, therefore, that the creation of such a label, while it wouldbe understandable to academics, would only create further confusion in thepublic mind.(f)The Commission’s response3.33 The Commission realises that there will always be criticism of anyproposals to extend the definition of murder which strays too far fromintentional killings. That said, there are very few practitioners who woulddisagree with the fact that implied malice is real murder. The Commissiondoes not accept the contention that it is acceptable that in difficult casesjuries ignore the trial judge’s direction on intention but still achieve themorally correct answer. The Commission believes that it is better to put thelegal test to the jury in frank terms.60