Law:

Section:

(a) Transferred malice, doctrine of-------Applicability---Scope---Murder---Liability for 'joint enterprise'---Scope---Defendant and his adversary engaging in a fight and shooting at each other in a public place---Deceased, an innocent passer-by, caught in the cross-fire and accidentally hit by a bullet fired from the weapon of the defendant's adversary---Defendant's adversary guilty of murder under the principle of "transferred malice"---Questions for determination were whether the defendant would also be liable for the murder of the deceased in such circumstances, and if so, whether as a "joint-principal" or "accessory" to such murder---Defendant was charged and convicted of murder by the Trial Court but his conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal---Validity. Per Lord Phillips, President and Lord Judge; Lord Wilson agreeing; Lord Kerr dissenting. [Majority view] Question for consideration before the Supreme Court was that, if D1 and D2 voluntarily engaged in fighting each other, each intending to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to the other and each foreseeing that the other had the reciprocal intention, and if D1 mistakenly killed V (an innocent passer-by), in the course of the fight, then in what circumstances, if any, was D2 guilty of the offence of murdering V? Where a defendant intended to kill or cause serious injury to one victim, V1, but accidentally killed another, V2, he would be guilty of the murder of V2. The basis of such liability was customarily described as "transferred malice". The doctrine applied to secondary parties as it did to principal offenders. Thus if D2 attempted to aid, abet, counsel or procure D1 to murder V1 but D1, intending to kill V1, accidentally killed V2 instead, D2 would be guilty of the murder of V2. Trial Court had directed the jury that, in order to convict, they had to be satisfied that there was a plan or an agreement to have a 'shoot-out', whether made beforehand or on the spur of the moment when the defendant and his adversary fired at each other in the public place, and that the jury could convict only if they were satisfied that the defendant and his adversary had formed a mutual plan or agreement to…

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/digixyei/sldsystempk.com/view/master-layout/view_case.php on line 492