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Today the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in the conjoined appeals of R v Jogee and Ruddock v R [2016] UKSC 8, having heard the latter sitting as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Both cases were appeals against murder convictions founded on a discrete principle of secondary liability, sometimes referred to as ‘joint enterprise’, sometimes as ‘parasitic accessorial liability’ (‘PAL’). The Supreme Court’s judgment:
Conducts a comprehensive review of the principles applicable to secondary liability for crime, and murder in particular [4]-[60];
Analyses the leading Privy Council and House of Lords authorities on PAL [61]-[87]; and hence
Overturns them, restating the law in the area [88]-[99].
more developed here
In reply to sudden
Had trouble with your link but found a case summary online.
Man this is one area of law that generated some heated debate during my law school criminal law class. Based on my initial cursory review, it seems like the law in the commonwealth is different from the American rule with regard to criminal intent. The American rule essentially is that intent to commit the underlying enumerated felony is what matters, not intent to kill. The approach in the commonwealth looks at the intent in a more nuanced way that precludes ridiculous felony murder convictions for accidental killings or situations where one of the participants (co-conspirators) is killed while committing the crime.
Will take another look at that case when I have some time later.
In reply to Walco
that law in the UK and the Commonwealth as you put it, began with Chan Wing-Siu [1985] A.C. 168 and was endorsed/solidified by Powell and Daniels [1999]. since then the law, with some disquiet in the legal community, has mirrored that of the US.
The UK House of Lords (now Supreme Court) has redressed that and has re balanced the law so to speak.
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In reply to sudden
The US law has its origins in British Common Law though. This rule has been around for a long time.
Commentators often trace the first manifestation of the felony murder rule in an English court to Lord Dacrces’ case in 1535.28 Lord Dacres and his hunting party agreed to trespass in a park to hunt game. They agreed to kill anyone who opposed their plan. One of the Lord‘s party killed a gamekeeper who confronted him in the park. Although not physically present at the site of the killing, Lord Dacres was also held responsible for the killing. He was subsequently convicted of murder and hanged with the others in the hunting party. Another early case which has been cited for the origin of the felony murder rule was decided twenty three years after Lord Dacres’ Case. In Mansell and Herbert’s case, 35 Herbert and a group of followers went to Sir Richard Mansfield’s house “with force to seize goods under pretence of lawful authority”. One of Herbert’s servants threw a stone at a person in the gateway which instead hit and killed an unarmed servant coming out of Mansfield’s house. The question at issue in the case was agreed by the court to be whether the accused were guilty of murder or manslaughter. Since misadventure39 was not considered, it was assumed that the throwing of the stone was not a careless act. That is, the servant who threw the stone intended to at least hit, if not kill, some person on Mansfield’s side. Although the court divided, the majority held that if one deliberately performed an act of violence toward third parties, and a person not intended died, it was murder regardless of any mistake or misapplication of force.
Herbert’s case is important to our modern thinking on felony murder because it involved a deliberate act of violence against a person, which resulted in an unintended person being the recipient of the violent act. Thus, the court employed a notion of transferred intent. Modern felony murder statutes are often written to address such situation. Such situation may occur when Bonnie and Clyde rob the local liquor store with drawn Tommy guns. The store clerk pulls a .38 caliber revolver hidden under the counter. Bonnie reacts by firing her Tommy gun at the clerk but misses and kills an innocent patron of the store. Pursuant to most felony murder statutes in U. S. jurisdictions both Bonnie and Clyde would be guilty of felony murder because Bonnie deliberately performed an act of violence during an unlawful act and a person not intended died by mistake or misapplication of force.
A Long Discourse on the Concept of Felony Murder in the United States
In reply to Walco
yes the general law is of some vintage and would have been adopted by the US but there seems to have been some divergence around 1985 or as the UKSC ruled-
The court holds, in a unanimous judgment, that the law must be set back on the correct footing which
stood before Chan Wing-Siu.
The mental element for secondary liability is intention to assist or
encourage the crime.
Sometimes the encouragement or assistance is given to a specific crime, and
sometimes to a range of crimes, one of which is committed; either will suffice. Sometimes the
encouragement or assistance involves an agreement between the parties, but in other cases it takes the
form of more or less spontaneous joining in a criminal enterprise; again, either will suffice. Intention
to assist is not the same as desiring the crime to be committed. On the contrary, the intention to assist
may sometimes be conditional, in the sense that the secondary party hopes that the further crime will
not be necessary, but if he nevertheless gives his intentional assistance on the basis that it may be
committed if the necessity for it arises, he will be guilty. In many cases, the intention to assist will be
co-terminous with the intention (perhaps conditional) that crime B be committed, but there may be
some where it exists without that latter intention. It will remain relevant to enquire in most cases
whether the principal and secondary party shared a common criminal purpose, for often this will
demonstrate the secondary party’s intention to assist.
The error was to treat foresight of crime B as
automatic authorisation of it, whereas the correct rule is that foresight is simply evidence (albeit
sometimes strong evidence) of intent to assist or encourage.
It is a question for the jury in every case
whether the intention to assist or encourage is shown.
This brings the mental element of the secondary party back into broad parity with what is required of
the principal. The correction is also consistent with the provision made by Parliament in a closely
related field, when it created (by the Serious Crime Act 2007) new offences of intentionally
encouraging or assisting the commission of a crime, and provided that a person is not to be taken to
have had that intention merely because of foreseeability.
