OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON

1. HOMICIDES
homicide, the killing of one human being by another. Homicide is a general term and
may refer to a noncriminal act as well as the criminal act of murder. Some homicides are
considered justifiable, such as the killing of a person to prevent the commission of a
serious felony or to aid a representative of the law. Other homicides are said to be
excusable, as when a person kills in self-defense. A criminal homicide is one that is not
regarded by the applicable criminal code as justifiable or excusable. All legal systems
make important distinctions between different types of homicide, and punishments vary
greatly according to the intent of the killer, the dangerousness of the killer’s conduct,
and the circumstances of the act.
Anglo-American codes classify homicides into two or more separate crimes,
each crime carrying its own penalty, which can be varied within limits by the sentencing
authority. Thus, murder is a homicide committed intentionally or as a result of the
commission of another serious offense. The crime of manslaughter includes killings that
are the result of recklessness or a violent emotional outburst, as might result from
provocation. Penalties for murder may include capital punishment or life imprisonment,
whereas the penalty for manslaughter is usually a maximum number of years in
confinement.
European codes and their derivatives group all unjustified killings under the single
crime of homicide but specify different penalties depending on the circumstances of the
act. Some countries provide special penalties in unique situations in accordance with
special social needs. For example, Japan reserves its harshest penalties for the murder
of one’s own lineal descendents, and Italy allows for mitigated punishment if killers
acted from a sudden intense passion to avenge their honour. European codes, like
Anglo-American codes, distinguish between intentional and other felony murders on the
one hand and reckless, negligent, and provoked murders on the other. In all systems the
most important distinction relevant to sentencing is that between conduct that is
socially dangerous and conduct that is merely reckless (i.e., between acts of intent and
acts of passion).
Anglo-American systems require an element of intent, or malice aforethought, in the act
of murder. This includes “transferred intent”—as when one who intends to kill another
kills a third person by mistake—and intent that may be inferred from the extreme
recklessness or dangerousness of the act. Indian law requires that offenders know of the
danger they might cause and thus rules out reckless acts that are the result of ignorance,
but other jurisdictions are less clear on this point. Many U.S. states distinguish between
murder of the first and of the second degree, with capital punishment limited to crimes
of clear intent.
European civil-law codes place a greater emphasis than do common-law systems on the
dangerousness of the actor’s conduct and the circumstances surrounding the act. Thus,
bodily injury resulting in death and death that is a result of negligence rather than
recklessness are more heavily penalized in European than in Anglo-American systems.
Whereas in England death resulting from a felony is defined as murder only in the case
of a few serious crimes, such as robbery or rape, European codes often punish any killer
as a murderer if the culprit has employed a deadly weapon.
Unlike the provisions of most law codes in the Western world, murder under Islamic
law is generally treated as a civil infraction—although Muslim jurisprudence does not
clearly distinguish between civil and criminal law. Under traditional Islamic law, the
family of a murdered Muslim is given the choice of taking retribution (Arabic: qiṣāṣ),
which allows them or their proxy to take the murderer’s life, or accepting wergild
(Arabic: diyah), or compensation, from the killer or the killer’s family. The Islamic
tradition extols the latter, and, in the case of an accidental death, financial
compensation by the offending party (in addition to an act of contrition) is the sole
remedy.
During the 1990s the legal definitions of homicide in the West changed somewhat as a
result of new attitudes toward the elderly and the terminally ill. Traditionally, European
codes acquitted a person for a “mercy killing,” whereas Anglo-American codes did not,
but in the 1990s a widespread “right to die” movement in North
America and Europe sought the legalization of certain forms
of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. In 1997 physician-assisted suicide was
legalized in the U.S. state of Oregon, and in 2000 the Netherlands became the first
country to enact a national law providing physicians with immunity from prosecution
for mercy killings.

A. INGREDIENTS COMMON TO ALL HOMICIDES

a) THE VICTIM OF A HOMICIDE
Homicide is the willful, intentional killing of one human being by another, including
murder, manslaughter, and vehicular homicide. Survivors of homicide victims, also
called co-victims, are generally defined as the family members, friends, and other loved
ones of the victim. They feel the life-changing impact of the trauma, hardship, and loss
that result from the crime.
Homicide is an act of a human killing another person.[1] A homicide requires only a
volitional act that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from
accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no intent to cause harm.[2]
Homicides can be divided into many overlapping legal categories, including murder,
manslaughter, justifiable homicide, killing in war (either following the laws of war or as
a war crime), euthanasia, and capital punishment, depending on the circumstances of
the death. These different types of homicides are often treated very differently in human
societies; some are considered crimes, while others are permitted or even ordered by the
legal system.
 b) DEAD WITHIN A YEAR AND A DAY. Ss198
Section 198. Limitation as to time of death
(1) A person is not deemed to have killed another if the death of that person does not take place
within a year and a day of the cause of death.
(2) Such period is reckoned inclusive of the day on which the last unlawful act contributing to
the cause of death was done, and when the cause of death is an omission to observe or perform a
duty, the period is reckoned inclusive of the day on which the omission ceased.
(3) When the cause of death is in part an unlawful act and in part an omission to observe or
perform a duty, the period is reckoned inclusive of the day on which the last unlawful act was
done or the day on which the omission ceased, whichever is the later.
The year and a day rule is associated with the former common law standard that death could not
be legally attributed to acts or omissions that occurred more than a year and a day before the
death. It is elsewhere associated with the minimum sentence for a crime to count as a felony.
In English common law, it was held that a death was conclusively presumed not to be murder
( or a homicide) if it occurred more than a year and one day since the act (or Omission) that was
alleged to have been its cause, the rule also applied to the offence of assisting with a sucide.
Certain problems with this rule arise from the advance of medicine. Life support technology can
extend the interval between the murderous act and the subsequent death. Application of the year
and a day rule prevented murder prosecutions, not because of the merits of the case but because
of the successful intervention of doctors in prolonging life. Additionally, advances in forensic
medicine may assist the court to determine that an act was a cause of death even though it was
carried out fairly far in the past.

R v Dyson [1908] 2 KB 454.

Court of Criminal Appeal
Facts
The defendant beat his child, causing a skull fracture and brain injury. These injuries
would have, in the normal course of things, eventually killed the child. After serving his
sentence for assaulting the child, he beat the child again. There was evidence that this
second beating may have accelerated the child’s death from the original skull fracture.
The defendant was charged with manslaughter. He argued that the second beating had
not caused the child’s death. This was because the child would have died from the
original injury in due course. The first beating was not admissible as a cause of death
due to the ‘year and a day’ rule.

Issue(s)
Was the second beating a relevant cause of the child’s death?

Decision
The Court of Appeal allowed the defendant’s appeal against his conviction. It was
sufficient for the prosecution to show that the child would not have died at that
particular time had they not suffered the second beating. However, the jury had not
considered whether the second beating accelerated the child’s death. The court could
not substitute its view of the evidence for that of a jury, and so had to allow the appeal.

This Case is Authority For…

When determining whether causation exists, it is enough to show that without the
defendant’s acts or omissions, the proscribed result would not have happened at that
particular time.
This means that the prosecution can establish a homicide offence where the defendant
accelerates the death of a terminally ill person, for example.

Other
This case also discusses the old ‘year and a day’ rule. This applied to homicide cases
where the victim took a long time to die of their injuries. This rule is no longer good law.

c) UNLAWFUL ACT OR OMMISSION

(i) Use of excessive force (ss.15, 225)

Sec 15. Defence of person or property and rash, reckless and

negligent acts
Subject to any express provisions in this Code or any other law in force in Uganda,
criminal responsibility—
(a) for the use of force in the defence of person and property; and
(b) in respect of rash, reckless or negligent acts, shall be determined according to the
principles of English law.

Sec 225. Excess of force

Any person authorized by law or by the consent of the person injured by him or her to
use force is criminally responsible for any excess, according to the nature and quality of
the act which constitutes the excess.
Uganda v Muherwa (1972) EA 466
A private person used a weapon to incapacitate the deceased who was suspected to be a
thief in the course of which he died.as a result the person was prosecuted and convicted
of manslaughter.
The question came about of whether private persons should be authorized to behave this
way sing the name of law.
The court held that private individuals are authorized by law to use reasonable force in
order to affect an arrest if the person to be arrested forcibly resists being arrested.
However, if he uses unreasonable force in arresting a suspect and in the process causes
the suspect’s death, he is liable for prosecution in the court of law.

Marwa s/o Robi v. R (1959) EA 660

Defasi Magayi v. Uganda (1965) EA 667

is just one of a line of cases where the courts have taken the attitude that the offence is
murder. In that case, the trial judge, having reviewed the relevant authorities, stated: "It
seems clear to me that whether the deceased was rightly suspected or not of being a
thief, any person who was identified as having taken part in that beating must be guilty
of murder."

ii) Attempt to Commit Suicide Ss 210

210. Attempting suicide
Any person who attempts to kill himself or herself commits a misdemeanour.

Paulo s/o Mabula v. R [1953]20 EACA 207

The Court of Appeal for Eastern African in the case of Paulo S/O Mabula v Republic
[1953] 20 EACA 207 held interalia that it would be murder where a person seeking to
commit suicide kills another person accidentally. The court stated that this is so because
suicide is a felony at criminal law and that by virtue of section 206 (a) of the Penal Code
any person includes the person intending to kill himself.
 d)PROOF OF DEATH

e) CAUSATION ss. 196

196. Causing death defined
A person is deemed to have caused the death of another person although his or her act is
not the immediate or sole cause of death in any of the following cases—
(a) if he or she inflicts bodily injury on another person in consequence of which that
person undergoes surgical or medical treatment which causes death. In this case it is
immaterial whether the treatment was proper or mistaken, if it was employed in good
faith and with common knowledge and skill; but the person inflicting the injury is not
deemed to have caused the death if the treatment which was its immediate cause was
not employed in good faith or was so employed without common knowledge or skill;
(b) if he or she inflicts a bodily injury on another which would not have caused death if
the injured person had submitted to proper surgical or medical treatment or had
observed proper precautions as to his or her mode of living;
(c) if by actual or threatened violence he or she causes such other person to perform an
act which causes the death of such person, such act being a means of avoiding such
violence which in the circumstances would appear natural to the person whose death is
so caused;
(d) if by any act or omission he or she hastened the death of a person suffering under
any disease or injury which apart from such act or omission would have caused death;
(e) if his or her act or omission would not have caused death unless it had been
accompanied by an act or omission of the person killed or of other persons.

1. MURDER: Penal Code ss. 188,189,191,194, 196, 197

2. MANSLAUGHTER: Penal Code Ss. 187, 190,192,193,

227, 234, 283,
3. ATTEMPTED MURDER ss 204