Bouncer guilty
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sargatanas said:
Only if it was your intent to cause harm.
I must admit I have learned about the law from this thread - I didn't realise that under the law you could be guilty of murder simply for knowingly causing harm to someone, even if you couldn't have forseen and didn't intend to cause their death. I do now understand the murder conviction but I still don't agree with it, from the information I have.
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I'm just trying to show you what the initial blow can cause directly mate, i appreciate you have your own opinion but i think we have to agree to disagree 
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But the punch wasn't accidental, and it ended up directly causing death.
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dirtydog said:
He tried to cause severe harm(ex pro boxer hitting someone full force 'lifting him off the ground' is definetly a deliberate attempt to cause serious harm) which sent a man backwards where he cracked his head. If he hadn't have been hit he would still be alive, therefore its a direct cause of death.
The issue, in my view, is what level of culpability you take if you do something that results in serious injury.Balddog said:
Surely it is reasonable to suppose that if you hit someone hard enough to "cause serious harm" there is ALWAYS the possibility that other injury, while not intended, will be the result? It seems to be to be very easy to anticipate that possibility, even probability. Most people, when knocked over, are going to hurt themselves. The law of probability says a small number of those injuries will be serious in their own right ... and a few, fatal.
If you, as a pro boxer or martial arts expert, clobber someone in this way, is it not likely they will fall down? If someone falls like that, is it not perfectly reasonable to expect that they might hit their head? And if they do, they might suffer further injury? It might be a split scalp, or it might be death.
What it boils down to, in my view, is that there are a very limited number of situations in which violence is legally justified, the obvious one being self-defence. and even then, only "reasonable" force.
So, if you get involved in a punchup, you're on dodgy ground to start with. If you have an unusual standard of skill (as a boxer or martial arts expert would), then you can be expected to be held to a higher standard than Joe Public, precisely because you are trained and are likely to know how and where to hit to cause injury, so it could be argued as presumptive that if you have that training and do cause injury, you knew it was likely to result, because you've had the training.
And, in the light of all that, if you use unreasonable force and someone dies, expect there to be serious consequences.
Did this bouncer expect the bloke he punched to die? Probably not, though I obviously have no way to know ..... and nor does anybody else, except the bouncer himself.
But from the description of the blow (and bearing in mind I wasn't either a witness to the event, or in court to hear the evidence, and I assume none of us were) it seems very likely to me that given his occupation and expertise, an expectation of serious harm is a reasonable inference, as is one of intent to cause that harm. Otherwise, why would a trained individual have dlivered that blow?
I understand your point of view, Balddog, but I don't agree. This wasn't (from the accounts) the archetypical ineffectual post-pub scrap, where half-cut wimps flail about for a while and achieve nothing more than winding themselves and looking like pillocks the observers, but a trained heavy throwing a serious punch, and meaning it. And a man died.
If this punch had been self-defence, he would have been acquitted. So, not having been there and heard the evidence, I'm forced to assume that the jury were convinced, beyond reasonable doubt, that this was NOT self-defence. Given the standard of proof required to reach to conviction, and the soul-searching any self-respecting person will do before finding anyone guilty of murder, I can only conclude that the circumstances were such that this was indeed excessive, and probably gratuitous, thuggery that resulted in a man's death.
It's easy to categorize all bouncers as thugs. That, to my mind, is pure cobblers. But there are some, and I've met a few, that do the job because they small-minded (if large-bodied) bullies that enjoy a semi-legitimate reason for throwing their weight around. I agree with sormicoft .... the quicker this type of bouncer is out of the industry, the better for everybody else, including those bouncers that are decent, reasonable people AND the punters.
Should it have been murder? I honestly don't know. But from the conviction, it seems 12 good men (and women) thought so, and seeing as they heard the evidence and I didn't, it's hard to differ from that.
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dirtydog said:
If you think this is strange (well, interesting really), have a read at these cases.
After reading these, you'll see the bouncer's case wasn't even hard to convict in terms of case law.
R v Blaue (1975)
The appellant attacked a young girl with a knife, causing a serious stab wound which pierced her lung. The girl was taken to hospital. She had lost a large quantity of blood and was told by the surgical registrar that a blood transfusion was necessary. The girl was a Jehovah's Witness by religion and she refused to have the transfusion on the ground that it was contrary to her religious beliefs. She was told that if she did not have the transfusion she would die. She persisted in her refusal and died the following day, if she had the transfusion, the chances of recovery would be 90%. The physical cause of death was the bleeding into the pleural cavity arising from the penetration of the lung. The appellant was convicted of manslaughter (because he suffered from diminished responsibility, would be murder other wise). He appealed, contend that the girl's refusal to have a blood transfusion was unreasonable and had broken the chain of causation between the stabbing and her death.
Held - It was the policy of the law that a person who used violence on another had to take his victim as he found him. It was not open to an assailant to assert that the victim's religious beliefs, which inhibited the victim from seeking certain kinds of treatment, were unreasonable. On the admitted facts the judge was entitled to tell the jury that the stab wound was an operative cause of death. The appellant had been properly convicted and the appeal would therefore be dismissed
And this one
R v Cheshire (1991)
The defendant had got into a chip shop, and the chip shop had a significant queue. The victim Trevor Jeffrey had an argument with Cheshire, Cheshire pulled a handgun and fired 2 shots. One hit the thigh and the other entered the stomach. He was hospitalised and developed respiratory problems and his breathing had to be maintained by a ventilator using a tube placed in the windpipe. A week later this tube was replaced by a tracheotomy tube which remained in place for the next four weeks.
His condition did not improve and after a marked deterioration on Christmas Day a further operation to explore his abdomen was carried out. From time to time he suffered from chest infections, from vomiting and from discharges from the abdominal wound and it was not until February 2 that he began to show improvement. During his time in intensive care the deceased's lungs had become congested and filled with fluid and he suffered considerable difficulty with breathing. On February 8 he again complained of difficulty in breathing and it was at first thought that this was a recurrence of the problem with his lungs.
An X-ray was taken but it showed no recurrence of lung trouble. He was probably seen by Mr. Harrison, the consultant general surgeon at the Greenwich District Hospital, on one occasion. He was also seen by the surgical registrar, Mr. Saunders, and the orthopaedic registrar. Later, on the evening of February 14, he complained of further difficulty with breathing and was attended by a house surgeon, Dr. Clare Jones. Dr. Jones had qualified in the summer of 1987 and had been a medical houseman for six months before becoming house surgeon on February 1. She was worried about the deceased's condition and sat with him for three-quarters of an hour recording in the notes that he was making a noise through his respiratory passages which she described as "stridor."
The deceased's condition deteriorated and the medical registrar was called. Urgent resuscitation, including cardiac massage, was given but the deceased died shortly after midnight. At postmortem it was found that the deceased's windpipe had become obstructed due to narrowing near the site of the tracheotomy scar. Such a condition is a rare but not unknown complication of intubation of the windpipe.
The defence said the wound was not the substantial cause of death, he was convicted at first instance and the CA upheld the verdict. The leading judge said ‘the acts of the accused caused the death of the deceased adding that the accused's acts need not be the sole cause or even the main cause of death it being sufficient that his acts contributed significantly to that result. Even though negligence in the treatment of the victim was the immediate cause of his death, the jury should not regard it as excluding the responsibility of the accused unless the negligent treatment was so independent of his acts, and in itself so potent in causing death, that they regard the contribution made by his acts as insignificant.’
The ONLY exception
R v Jordan (1956)
The defendant Jordan had got into an argument in a café with another soldier in a barracks being in national service. And Jordan stabbed the victim in the abdomen, he was alive and taken to hospital and there the wound of looked at and described as not life threatening. The wound was cleaned and stitched up, he was given antibiotics (Terramycin) and suffered from the side effects diarrhoea. The doctors said the wound looked clean and largely healed and stopped the antibiotics. Another doctor came on duty later and did not looked at his chart, and gave him another dose of antibiotics and enormous quantise of intravenous him with fluids to the extent that his lungs was filled up with fluids. And the victim died.
So Jordan was charged with Murder, the post mortem reveal that the death was cause of filling of the lungs with water and the antibiotics intolerance. And that the wound had largely healed and didn’t present a particular problem of threat to his life. Beware that at this time the death penalty was enforced and the medical team had prepare to give evidence. Jordan was convicted at first instance and appealed. They said that the patient’s treatment was palpably wrong. And the Court Appeal quashed the conviction for murder, and this is the only time the Titanium chain had been broken in appellate case law.
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This has been a very interesting thread, so thank you to those of you who have offered informed opinions and well-structured posts: Sequoia, Raymond, Balddog, dirtydog and sormicoft spring to mind, but I'm sure there are others!
Balddog, it seems as though you know understand why the charge was murder and not manslaughter, given the current state of the law. Is it fair to say that you don't agree that the law should have permitted a murder conviction in this case - i.e. you don't quibble with the conviction, but only with the laws that permitted the conviction?
Raymond, you clearly know a bit about the law, but can I offer you a piece of advice, that comes from a long history of trying to explain maths and physics to non-specialists? If you want to explain something to a layperson, then you should use the general rule of thumb that every piece of technical jargon, every mathematical formula and every quotation from a Xavier v Yates (2003) is going to halve the number of people who follow what you're on about.
Balddog, it seems as though you know understand why the charge was murder and not manslaughter, given the current state of the law. Is it fair to say that you don't agree that the law should have permitted a murder conviction in this case - i.e. you don't quibble with the conviction, but only with the laws that permitted the conviction?
Raymond, you clearly know a bit about the law, but can I offer you a piece of advice, that comes from a long history of trying to explain maths and physics to non-specialists? If you want to explain something to a layperson, then you should use the general rule of thumb that every piece of technical jargon, every mathematical formula and every quotation from a Xavier v Yates (2003) is going to halve the number of people who follow what you're on about.
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Arcade Fire said:Raymond, you clearly know a bit about the law, but can I offer you a piece of advice, that comes from a long history of trying to explain maths and physics to non-specialists? If you want to explain something to a layperson, then you should use the general rule of thumb that every piece of technical jargon, every mathematical formula and every quotation from a Xavier v Yates (2003) is going to halve the number of people who follow what you're on about.
I know i know
They teach us that on the LPC, i did pass interviewing, advocacy and Drafting 
. But posting on here i just write whats on my mind, believe it or not, it is HARDER to write in laymen's term than legal terms.If anyone don't understand any of what i posted above (It was my Lecture cliffnotes), i can try to explain it in more detail.
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Hah, I definitely believe it. When you're used to using jargon it ceases to become jargon. For you the phrase 'mens rea' is as everyday as 'differentiable manifold' is to me.Raymond Lin said:
I actually enjoyed reading, and feel I learnt a lot from, the three cases that you quoted from in an earlier post - so thank you!
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Arcade Fire said:Hah, I definitely believe it. When you're used to using jargon it ceases to become jargon. For you the phrase 'mens rea' is as everyday as 'differentiable manifold' is to me.
I actually enjoyed reading, and feel I learnt a lot from, the three cases that you quoted from in an earlier post - so thank you!
'differentiable manifold'
They are not quotes as such, i did write them, but it was my own lecture notes i made on the cases. Thou text book versions aren't much longer or more details, they are more a summary of the case report.