Criminal Law Liability Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

sinful Law Liability - Essay ExampleThere is also the legal duty to act because of an effective or implied contract. For example, in R. v. Pitwood (1902)2 a defendant was convicted of manslaughter after he failed to close a level traverse gate with the result of a hay cart and a train colliding. The collision resulted in the last of a man. Pitwood argued that he had no legal duty to the deceased, but Judge Wright held that he did dedicate mavin arising from his contract of employment. While R. v. Pitwood is often regarded as a classic case of criminal liability for omission, Wrights effective words leave some room for doubtThus the judge may actually have been seeing liability coming from the fact that Pitwood had left the level crossing gate open alternatively than the fact that he had not shot the level crossing gate. Thus did the liability come from an challenge or an inaction It would seem that the former occurred.This was a case of gross negligence manslaughter, a crim e that is a useful background to the whole subject of criminal liability for omission. In general such manslaughter requires the following elementsDuty is imposed by common law statute. ... A breach is the failure to do something or doing something incorrectly according to the standard expected. The causal link is the fact that death has resulted from this failure with no intervening cause while gross negligence is the fact that the standard of performance or non-performance is so bad as to make it criminal. A reasonable person standard can apply when thither is no actual contractual arrangement. Thus if a reasonable person would have acted in a panache that would have prevented or avoided the resulting damage/injury then the defendant may be found liable. For example, in R. v. miller4 (1982) a defendant was held liable for criminal damage to a building that had been caused by a burn up. Miller was a tramp who had fallen asleep in a disused property while consume a cigarette. T he cigarette deplorable onto the mattress he was asleep on, and when he woke up because of the smoke, Miller did not feat to put the cigarette/ burn out but merely moved to another room and fell asleep.The court found that Miller was bound to act because the dangerous circumstance had been of his own making, and the omission that had later occurred was of a criminal nature. By contrast, if Miller had been a person passing by the house and had seen it smoldering but had done nothing he would not have had a duty to put the fire out and thus the other elements of the crime would be irrelevant. Miller, as well as Pitwood also brings up a problem that has yet to be fully resolved regarding criminal liability for omission. The problem revolves rough the fact that a general principle of criminal law is that the mens rea of the offence must exist at the time of the actus reus. Essentially there must be a coincidence of the actus reus and the mens