Criminal Law Assignment - Criminalizing Unlawful Act Manslaughter

Criminalizing Unlawful Act Manslaughter 1
CRIMINALIZING UNLAWFUL ACT MANSLAUGHTER
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Criminalizing Unlawful Act Manslaughter 2
CRIMINALIZING UNLAWFUL ACT MANSLAUGHTER
Criminal law is founded on the principle called the Actus Reus and mens rea. This means
that an act makes a person not guilty unless mind is guilty as well. An individual is also guilty
when proven culpable or blameworthy in both action and thought. This is the general distinction
between manslaughter and murder. Manslaughter is whereby an individual hits and kills another
while driving without an intention to kill the person. An unlawful manslaughter is also called
constructive manslaughter. It is a kind of involuntary manslaughter because an unlawful killing
has occurred whereby defendant lacks murder’s mens rea (Leigh 2016).
The constructive manslaughter takes place when a defendant commits an unlawful
dangerous acts leading to death. The constructive manslaughter requirements include: (i) there
has to be an unlawful act; (ii) the unlawful act has to be dangerous; and (iii) the unlawful
dangerous act has to cause death. No conviction for constructive manslaughter if any of the
elements of unlawful act is not present. The unlawful act manslaughter is the unlawful act
manslaughter. This takes place in the course of commission/attempted commission of
misdemeanor.
It is completely rejected by the Model Penal Code. A great proportion of states that
prohibit this type solely include such misdemeanors that are dangerous inherently to life in
criminal statute with exclusion of strict liability type or malum prohibition crimes. The
defendant is only required to possess criminal intent for misdemeanor to be guilty of killing. In
this paper, I hold the view that criminalization of unlawful act manslaughter violates the legal
principle of ‘no act is guilty unless the mind is guilty’.
In my view, there must be mens rea or guilty mind before criminalizing. One must have
an intention to commit a crime or have knowledge that his action or lack of it would lead to a

Criminalizing Unlawful Act Manslaughter 3
crime to be committed. Where it is criminalized, I hold the view that the common law standard
test of criminal liability of act not being culpable unless mind is guilty is violated. Moreover, the
criminalization goes against the due process which requires both actus reus (guilty act) and mens
rea for a defendant to be proven guilty of crime. Moreover, it is going against the general rule
principle which hold that an individual that acted in absence of mental fault is never liable in
criminal law.
To support my view, the following example showcases that it is wrong to criminalize unlawful
act manslaughter. In a case where Roberta points an unloaded gun at Joy to scare her into
breaking with Roberta’s ex-boyfriend. Such a crime is known as brandishing a weapon and
hence classified as misdemeanor. Joy then suffers a heart attack at the sight of a gun and dies.
Here, Roberta has most probably committed misdemeanor manslaughter. Brandishing a weapon
is never always dangerous inherently to life. Nevertheless, if Joy has a heart attack and
subsequently dies due to Roberta’s misdemeanor offence commissioning, under criminalization,
Roberta is still criminally liable for misdemeanor manslaughter. However, in my view, Roberta
had no intention to kill Joy and his mind was never guilty. Making Roberta liable criminal for
unlawful act manslaughter in my view, would, in this case be a typical case of the violation of
the legal principle of ‘no act is guilty unless the mind is guilty’
Another example where criminalization is could be right in my view is reckless or
negligent involuntary manslaughter. In many states, negligent or reckless involuntary
manslaughter stays common type of manslaughter than demeanor. Whereas reckless or negligent
involuntary manslaughter can be criminalized, it would be wrong to criminalize unlawful act
manslaughter. This is because whereas reckless or negligent type defendant stays aware of the
risk of death but still proceeds to act anyway. This is a type of killing that is supported by