2. Managing Mens Rea in Singapore - Singapore Academy of Law

318Singapore Academy of Law Journal (2006)knowledge that death was likely – death is normally the result of seriousinjuries and it is not an unfair assumption that most people must knowwhat serious injuries are and that they are likely to cause death. Yet thecriminal law should not be based entirely on what is normally the case orwhat most people must know – death sometimes occurs from injurieswhich are not normally thought of as serious, and many people do notknow this. A stab to the heart, administered with significant force willnormally satisfy either requirement, unless the accused is able to showthat it was accidental, in the sense that the accused intended no injury atall or that another non-fatal injury was intended. But what does one dowith an accused who presses a pillow onto the face of a victim in order tosilence and not to kill, or an accused who slashes the leg of a victim inorder to prevent escape and not to kill? Section 300(c) has the potential tomake these situations murder and punishable with death, and it is incases like these that s 300(c) is subjected to the greatest stress.8 To the credit of our judges, they have extended a lifeline in aremarkable series of cases. This the courts achieved through the device ofsubtle distinctions between the injury intended and the injury whichfinally caused death. Embedded in s 300(c) is an inherent ambiguity: it ismurder only if the injury intended was the same as the fatal injury. Thisuncertainty was anticipated in Virsa Singh: 11In considering whether the intention was to inflict the injury found tohave been inflicted, the enquiry necessarily proceeds on broad lines as,for example, whether there was an intention to strike at a vital or adangerous spot, and whether with sufficient force to cause the kind ofinjury found to have been inflicted. It is, of course, not necessary toenquire into every last detail as, for instance, whether the prisonerintended to have the bowels fall out, or whether he intended topenetrate the liver or the kidneys or the heart. Otherwise, a man whohas no knowledge of anatomy could never be convicted, for, if he doesnot know that there is a heart or a kidney or bowels, be cannot be saidto have intended to injure them. Of course, that is not the kind ofenquiry. It is broad based and simple and based on common sense: thekind of enquiry that "twelve good men and true” could readilyappreciate and understand.9 The problem with this kind of instruction is that it does not tellus exactly how particular the intention must be. It is often that injuryleads to death in a chain of events – incision, severance of artery, loss ofblood, death. Although it seems clear that death need not be11 Supra n 9, at 467.