Why Is Duress A Defense To Murder?

This essay will attempt to explain a watershed moment using the Sarah’s Law as an example. The main objective will be to observe how this law improved society using academic research and what improvements that can be provided with the law to help in the future towards treatments of victims and witnesses. This essay will highlight how Sarah’s Law was created and how it made a huge impact in the criminal justice system, as well as, the ways the law helped victims and witnesses in society today.

Defences for Murder There are only three partial defences for murder; suicide pact, provocation-the loss of self control and reaction must be instantaneous and diminished responsibility. Amongst the three mentioned two are most frequently used, these are provocation and diminished responsibility, and only one full defence, self defence. These defences are used to reduce the sentence charge by the defendant to manslaughter from murder. In the following text I will be examining how men use provocation and diminished responsibility to walk free from murder.

Currently if a D aged 18 or over is convicted of murder, the judge must pass a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. For offenders aged 10-17 found guilty of murder, the judge must order that they are detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. The fact the sentencing is mandatory and the judge has no discretion leaves a lack of ability to sentence according to blameworthiness, unlike all other offences which have discretion in sentencing; Gotts. This lack of differentiation between blameworthiness is further emphasised by the Government’s sentencing guidelines laid down in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Under this act in cases of murders of police officers or murders involving firearms D should receive a 30 year sentence. However, in cases like that of Martin (Anthony) such a sentence would appear unjust.

Bulsey & Anor v State of Queensland [2015] QCA 187 signified the requirements of legal justifications when conducting unwarranted arrests, and further expresses the importance of the right to personal liberty as it is ‘the most fundamental of the human rights recognised under the common law.’ It was evident to the Judges that at least one officer held reasonable suspicion that “the suspect” had committed an indictable offence, but the lawfulness of the arrest was inevitably questioned as to whether an officer with reasonable suspicion was the arresting officer. The judgements in favour of the appellants heightens the need for officers to use their powers within the ‘confines of the law’ when ‘forcibly arrest[ing] and detaining’ a person as to preserve the right to personal liberty, for once this right is left in the power of any authority, to imprison arbitrarily whomever they suspect, ‘there would soon be an end of all other rights and immunities.’

This essay will ultimately contend that the Sentencing Amendment (Coward 's Punch Manslaughter and Other Matters) Act 2014 is an ill-founded initiative made by legislators, giving the impression of a powerful Government without truly reducing the violence. Using a close reading of each provision of the legislation in unison with extrinsic materials, this piece will outline the efficacy, necessity and likely impacts of the Act.

-The plea of duress is when the abusers had to agree with the abusers demands to stop something else worse from happening. This may include illegal activity, illegal behavior, drug related activity, theft, fraud, or violence to others. To argue this plea of duress the judge has to find it was necessary to agree under that circumstances he/she was in harm or serious threat to their life or well being and this was the only way to avoid it.(USDJ,1996)

3. Dudley and Stephen will be charged with first-degree murder. Their punishment should be 20-30 years or life in prison. The murder of Brooks was no accident because it was premeditated. Despite the malnutrition as a factor Brooks was still sane and refused to be eaten but the other two ignored this without a second thought. By convicting Dudley and Stephen it will show that the law of the country is absolute. It will also decrease the chances of someone appealing because "They were mentally ill during the time of the killing."

1: Imagine walking through Sydney Airport, excited as you wait to catch your flight when all of a sudden a brawl that can only be described as “chaotic, wild and uncontrolled” breaks out. As you watch on, frozen in fear, a man begins to aggressively beat his rival with a metal bollard, stabbing him and killing him in cold blood; How would you feel if that man was allowed to walk the streets of NSW? Walk on the same footpath as you, shop in the same aisle as you. Well this man, Mick Hawi was allowed to, as he was released on bail five years after committing this crime.

Two white college students, Steven Tyler Kummerfield, 20, and Alexander Dennis Ternowetsky, 19, were both charged with first-degree murder. The facts of the case are as follows: On the night of April 17th, 1995, Kummerfield and Ternowetsky met for drinks and agreed to go looking for a prostitute. Kummerfield picked up George and drove her to a spot near the airport, where they forced her into oral sex and proceeded to beat her. The injuries and cause of death were blunt force trauma to the head.

Under this act the defence of Provocation has been abolished (s.54). The requirement of the loss of control needing to be ‘sudden’ has been removed (s.54(2)) this change will make the defence more available to abused partners who kill in self-defence. This was an issue in the Ahluwalia case where eventually a diminished responsibility plea was accepted after a lengthy appeal and retrial. The new defence has also tightened the law (under s.55(6))so the loss of control defence can not be used in cases where someone has killed for revenge – as in the case of Ibrams and Gregory or for marital unfaithfulness as in the case of Davies. This may now have dealt with the long term suggestion that, due to its historical background and the nature of men as more likely to “snap” in anger, that provocation was a male orientated defence. Another major criticism of the previous defence of provocation was the reasonable person test (objective test). Prior to the new defence this part of the provocation defence was left in confusion with the House of Lords decision in Smith(Morgan) conflicting with the Privy Council decision in Holley and then the Court of Appeal following Holley rather than Smith(Morgan) thus departing from precedent. This may now be resolved because the new defence of loss of control under s.54(1)(c) seems to confirm the legal principle set out in Holley and Camplin.

The accused, Brady Lorenz, age 18, has a known past relating to anger issues, and has been convicted of assault once before the events of this case had taken place. Dylan, a witness in the case who is eighteen years of age, is a brilliant student but does have a criminal background. Dylan was charged with underage gambling and blackmail. Leon Lee is age eighteen and student council president and has no criminal background but appeared to be caught up in a “love triangle” between Brady and Emilia. Emilia V. is age eighteen and is an amazing athlete and played for the varsity girls hockey team and had sustained a head injury during the championships.

A joint Huntley hearing was held before Justice Thomas Gilligan in 1989. A Huntley hearing determines if the defendant’s statement was made voluntarily to the police. The hearing should have known that the children did not their Miranda right. Without a warning, anything said during the questioning cannot be admissible as evidence at trial. However, the court conclude that the statements were properly and legally gained. There was no hard evidence to link these young men to the crime scene. It is unbelievable that because of these false confessions with no hard evidence linking any of the suspects to the crime scene, that they would be convicted to five to ten years for a crime they did not commit. Confessions that were essentially useless

An innocent man is wrongly executed whilst a man who raped and murdered a mother and her thirteen year old daughter spends the rest of his life with three meals a day and cable television. Which of these is the bigger injustice? The use of the death penalty to punish serious crimes is a very controversial topic and there is much debate surrounding the issue. This paper will briefly discuss arguments supporting and against the use of the death penalty.

as are persons subjected to coercion or duress to such a degree as to render the

The Supreme Court case, R v Vollmer[8], states that the appellant was convicted of murdering his de facto partner – where evidence as to the deceased’s past violent history in a previous relationship was available at the time of trial but not relied on by defence counsel – where there was no evidence led at trial or on appeal of a history of violence between the appellant and the deceased – where the appellant sought to rely on the defences of self-defence and provocation at trial under sections 271(2), 304 and 668E(1)[9]. Where the cases R v Hajistassi[10], R v Mogg[11] and Re Knowles[12] were applied as precedent to the final decision of the case.