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Rationality in murder – a reply

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Glanville Williams*
Affiliation:
Jesus College, Cambridge

Extract

After the long discussion of the definition of murder, in the courts and in legal writings, and the deliberations of the Nathan committee (which in essence endorsed the present law, as proposed to be slightly modified in the Draft Code), it might have been hoped that this debate would now subside. But there remain some malcontents, whom William Wilson has now joined by his article in 10 LS 307. This propounds a definition of murder which in the author's view would bring ‘rationality’ into the law (assumed to be at present in some way irrational). His two main proposals are the abolition of the doctrine of oblique intent in the context of murder (or altogether), and the acceptance as an additional mental element for murder, of a purpose to create a lethal risk.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1991

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References

1. HL Paper 78.

2. Cl 54.

3. 10 LS 308–9, 311.

4. 105 LQR 389.

5. 10 LS 308.

6. Ibid, 314.

7. Ibid, 322.

8. [1975] AC 55.

9. Hancock [1966] AC 455.