Legal Advice On Matters Pertaining Mr Turners Murder Charge

(Name and Co.)

(P.O. Box )

27th April, 2019

Mr. Turnbull

(P.O. Box)

LEGAL ADVICE ON MATTERS PERTAINING MR. TURNER’S MURDER CHARGE

Thank you Mr. Turnbull for turning to us on legal advice following the murder charges raised

against you. We assure you that we will work towards giving you as much helpful information as

we can. The extent of our advice will involve the definition of murder under the penal code and

distinctions between murder and manslaughter as stipulated under the penal code. This will

inform our decision on the type of defense to be used in your specific case as specified by its

details. We shall also evaluate various prosecution approaches that could be used against you and

advice you on the appropriate rebuttals with a view to exonerating you as soon as possible

without the case having to be made too lengthy. Our main aim is therefore to ensure that you are

aware of what awaits you in the criminal proceedings to ensue and how you can most effectively

ensure that your intended outcome is achieved through the court process. We would want to first

inform you that under the law you are innocent until proven guilty and therefore you have no

obligation to answer any questions posed to you by the investigators. When being questioned

your lawyers have to be present and therefore we expect prompt communication between you

and us in the event of any correspondence from the authorities.

Murder Charges

Under the Crimes Act (1990) the law stipulates that for one to be found guilty for murder

charges it is necessary that mens rea (guilty mind) as well as actus reus (guilty act) be proven by

the prosecution. It is necessary that the plaintiff’s act be the immediate cause of the deceased’s

death without any excuse acceptable by law; to simplify it, if the deceased did not die as a result

of your action directly then this charge will not hold water in court

. Mens rea on the other hand

refers to whether it was your intention to kill the deceased when you committed the action. There

are three various states of mind that are used to determine mens rea: intent to kill, intent to

commit grave harm to one’s body and a reckless lack of regard for human life (as regards to the

defendant/deceased)

. In this specific content this means that if the murder was committed either

in the spur of the moment or whether the act was premeditated then you can be found guilty for

murder. Also, the charges will be upheld if the act was committed with the intention to harm the

deceased and not necessarily kill him but the act ended up killing the deceased. NSW law refers

to such actions as those intended to bring grievous bodily harm to the defendant and they include

making a person contract a harmful bodily disease, disfiguration of one’s body or death of a

fetus. Therefore if it is proven that the action was committed with any of these as the motive you

can be charged guilty for murder. Actus reus could be proven either directly or indirectly as long

as the defendant’s action was linked to the death of the deceased. For example, in Royall v R the

Smith, A. T. H. On Actus Reus and Mens Rea. (1978). P. R. Glazebook (ed) Reshaping the

Criminal Law: Essays in Honor of Glanville Williams (1978) at 95.

Robinson, Paul. Mens Rea. (2003). University of Pennsylvania Law School, Scholarship at

Penn Law.

intention to commit harm to the plaintiff’s body or to harm them was proven in that the

defendant wanted to harm the plaintiff using an ashtray and therefore the plaintiff decided to

jump out of the window due to the apprehension of being hurt and consequently causing her

death

. Such actions are plausible in a court of law and may lead to one being convicted of

murder. Constructive murder is also another type of charge under the general murder charge and

this is the question of whether the action committed directly caused the death of the deceased.

Manslaughter Charges

The second item to be evaluated is the definition of manslaughter in order to ensure that you are

cognizant of its definition and to decide whether the circumstances of your case fall in line with

the provisions for manslaughter. The Crimes Act does not directly define manslaughter but does

refer to it and make sufficient provisions for it. The difference between manslaughter and murder

is oftentimes argued upon the basis of mens rea, in other words the state of mind of the

defendant; it can also be argued depending on the mitigating factors or the basis on which the

murder was committed. The law identifies two distinct classes of manslaughter which are

involuntary manslaughter and voluntary manslaughter each with their own different maximum

sentences. For voluntary manslaughter in New South Wales the defendant has to be judged upon

evaluation and proving that the presence of both mens rea and actus reus. However, the

difference between murder and manslaughter in this perspective lies in the fact that the defendant

has some defense acceptable under law in this instance; such defenses include diminished

R v Lavender (No 37) (2005) 222 CLR 67

responsibility or extreme provocation; these defenses shall be evaluated in a subsequent section.

Involuntary manslaughter on the other hand is established in the event that the prosecution is

able to prove the existence of the actus reus but is unable to prove the existence of the mens rea

therefore disabling them from establishing a charge against the defendant. Involuntary

manslaughter is further subdivided under common law into manslaughter by criminal negligence

and manslaughter by dangerous and unlawful act. The case Wilson v R was able to determine

the authority for mens rea and actus reus pertaining to involuntary manslaughter by dangerous or

unlawful act

. The court found that the action which brought death upon the deceased must be a

breach of criminal law and that the action must also hold with it an appreciable risk of injury to

the plaintiff therefore setting precedent for establishment of actus reus. For mens rea, the court

found that the defendant has to have intended to carry out the act in breach of criminal law and

that any reasonable person in the situation the defendant was in would have acknowledged the

considerable risk of committing serious injury. The legal basis for manslaughter by criminal

negligence on the other hand was determined in the case of Nydam v R (1977) and was upheld in

several subsequent court rulings such as Burns v R (2012) and R v Lavender (2005). The court’s

decision in Nydam v R (1977) stipulated that for criminal negligence to be proven there has to be

sufficient evidence brought forth by the prosecution showing that the action bringing about the

death of the deceased was committed by the defendant voluntarily and consciously in the

absence of the intent to kill or cause immense harm to body albeit the situation must be one in

which any reasonable person would have exercised a certain standard of care that the defendant

Wilson v R (No 31) (1992) 174 CLR 313

fell short of and would have been cognizant of the high risk of bodily harm that their act

constituted.

The aforementioned are the possible charges that could be brought against you and it is

necessary that they be understood in order to determine the applicable defenses against each

charge.

Possible Defenses

Herein we shall discuss the possible defenses that can be applied in the event that either of the

aforementioned charges are brought up against you. The circumstances of your particular case

present the element of provocation which under the Crimes Act of NSW can be used as a defense

and in this case will drop the charge against you from murder to manslaughter whose sentence is

much lower than that of murder. Therefore this defense only acts as a partial defense and does

not completely exonerate the defendant. The timing of this case falls under the period where

provocation can be used as a defense in a court as it happened after the Crimes Amendment Act

of June, 2014. The prosecution’s work is to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the action

was committed in the absence of extreme provocation and therefore you should prove that there

was indeed extreme provocation by explaining the specifics of your encounter and reasoning as

to how the instances fall in line with the definition of extreme provocation under the Crimes Act.

The decision as to whether the act was committed as a result of extreme provocation however

lies with the court.

The law states that one could argue that the action was committed as a result of extreme

provocation in the following instances: if the defendant’s act or omission of an act was caused by

their loss of self-control which was induced by the deceased’s conduct including the usage of

insults (either gestures or words); the deceased’s conduct was sufficient to cause the loss of self-

control by any reasonable person in the same circumstance as the accused and caused them to

inflict harm or kill the deceased whether the deceased’s conduct occurred before or during the

act which caused their death.

Therefore I would recommend that your defense be that the deceased actions caused you to carry

out the action that you did leading to their death. This will fulfil the necessity under common law

that one must come to equity with clean hands and as the deceased themselves committed an act

of provocation you sentence will be made more lenient. There is however, the need to clearly

show the causal connection between the actions of the deceased and your loss of self-control.

The law provides that the conduct of the deceased causing the loss of self-control does not

necessarily have to have happened immediately before the act was committed but could have

happened some time back or over a period of time leading up to the act of murder. The acts of

the deceased which account for provocation should also be proven to be specifically aggressive

in your case especially if they bounded on issues such as race, age, ethnicity and so forth.

Another defense that could be used in court would be that of mental health and emotional

disturbance as decided in the case of R v M’Naghten

. This case proved that mental illness or

lack of wellbeing may give reasons as to why you felt provoked by the deceased. This defense is

applicable in such a situation as it reduces the moral culpability of the accused and consequently

caused you to commit the act. This would lead to the case being decided as manslaughter as

opposed to murder and would therefore reflect both parties’ blame levels in this particular

circumstance. However, for this to be proven there have to be medical records showing this

R v M’Naghten (No 718) (1843) 10 C & F 200

mental health signed by a registered doctor prior to the happenings leading to the death of the

deceased or after examination by a registered doctor upon the request of the prosecution.

Impact of the NSW ODPP prosecution policy

The aforementioned policy highlights some provisions some of which may have certain effects

on the ruling given in the case. One of these provisions is that of the accused getting to decide

whether to be judged by a judge alone or by an entire jury. However, this will be hard to do as

this is a case concerning provocation which under the law counts as a community value case and

will conventionally be decided by a jury. The selection of the jury should be representative of the

entire community and therefore the defense can seek to appeal to the specific nature of each juror

in order to implore them to be lenient and charge for manslaughter as a result of provocation as

opposed to ruling it as a case of murder.

As aforementioned mental health issues can be used as a defense in the court of law and the

criminal proceedings will differ significantly than when healthy individuals are being tried as

stipulated in the NSW ODPP prosecution policy. This may lead to a more lenient sentencing as

the mens rea for such individuals is challenged by the defense.

It is our sincere hope that all your questions have been answered sufficiently in this letter.

However, if any questions still linger do not hesitate to contact us. We shall be ready to equip

you with any more legal information as we continue evaluating the circumstances of your

particular case.

Yours faithfully,

(Name and Co.)

Bibliography

Burns v R (No 35) (2012) 246 CLR 334

Crimes Act (1990) NSW No. 40

Director of Public Prosecutions. ODPP Guidelines. (2007). Office of the Director of Public

Prosecutions.

Nydam v R (No 50) (1977) VR 430

Robinson, Paul. Mens Rea. (2003). University of Pennsylvania Law School, Scholarship at Penn

Law.

R v Lavender (No 37) (2005) 222 CLR 67

R v M’Naghten (No 718) (1843) 10 C & F 200

Smith, A. T. H. On Actus Reus and Mens Rea. (1978). P. R. Glazebook (ed) Reshaping the

Criminal Law: Essays in Honor of Glanville Williams (1978) at 95.

Wilson v R (No 31) (1992) 174 CLR 313

Place new order. It's free, fast and safe

Paper type

Deadline

Page count

550 words

Total price: $ 15.00

Our customers say

Jeff Curtis

USA, Student

"I'm fully satisfied with the essay I've just received. When I read it, I felt like it was exactly what I wanted to say, but couldn’t find the necessary words. Thank you!"

Ian McGregor

UK, Student

"I don’t know what I would do without your assistance! With your help, I met my deadline just in time and the work was very professional. I will be back in several days with another assignment!"

Shannon Williams

Canada, Student

"It was the perfect experience! I enjoyed working with my writer, he delivered my work on time and followed all the guidelines about the referencing and contents."

Legal advice on matters pertaining mr turners murder charge

Place new order. It's free, fast and safe

Our customers say

Jeff Curtis

Ian McGregor

Shannon Williams