Law of Crimes – Culpable Homicide & Murder

Homicide means killing of a Human being by another human being. It can be justifiable (for example, killing of an enemy soldier in a war), culpable (that is blameworthy or wrongful) or accidental.

Culpable Homicide means causing death by –

• An act with the intention of causing death;

• An act with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death; or

• An act with the knowledge that it was likely to cause death.

Illustration

1. A lays sticks and turf over a pit, with the intention of thereby causing death, or with the knowledge that death is likely to be thereby caused. Z believing the ground to be firm, treads on it, falls in and is killed. A has committed the offence of culpable homicide.

2. A knows Z to be behind a bush. B does not know that A, intending to cause, or knowing it to be likely to cause Z’s death, induces B to fire and kill Z. Here B may be guilty of no offence; but A has committed the offence of culpable homicide.

It is important to note that a person who causes bodily injury to another who is labouring under a disorder, disease or bodily infirmity, and thereby accelerates the death of that other, shall be deemed to have caused his death. Also, where death is caused by bodily injury, the person who causes such bodily injury shall be deemed to have caused the death, although by resorting to proper remedies and skilful treatment the death might have been prevented. But causing of the death of a child in the mother’s womb is not culpable homicide, it is miscarriage instead. For culpable homicide, any part of that child must havebeen brought forth, though the child may not have breathed or been completely born.

Culpable Homicide may or may not amount to murder. Culpable Homicide is murder in following cases –

1. If the act by which the death is caused is done with the intention of causing death, or

2. If it is done with the intention of causing such bodily injury as the offender knows to be likely to cause the death of the person to whom the harm is caused, or

3. If it is done with the intention of causing bodily injury to any person and the bodily injury intended to be inflicted is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, or

4. If the person committing the act knows that it is so imminently dangerous that it must, in all probability, cause death, or such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, and commits such act without any excuse for incurring the risk of causing death or such injury as aforesaid.

Thus, Murder is the most heinous of the culpable homicide. Andevery murder is culpable homicide, but every culpable homicide is not murder. Only the intention of causing the bodily injury coupled with the knowledge of the likelihood of such injury causing the death or its sufficiency in ordinary course of nature to cause death, is sufficient for a culpable homicide to amount to murder.

Illustration

1. A shoots Z with the intention of killing him. Z dies in consequence. A commits murder.

2. A intentionally gives Z a sword-cut or club-wound sufficient to cause the death of a man in the ordinary course of nature. Z dies in consequence. Here A is guilty of murder, although he may not have intended to cause Z’s death.

Culpable Homicide is not murder in following cases –

1. Grave and sudden provocation

Culpable homicide is not murder if the offender, whilst deprived of the power of self-control by grave and sudden provocation, causes the death of the person who gave the provocation or causes the death of any other person by mistake or accident.

Illustrations

1. A, under the influence of passion excited by a provocation given by Z, intentionally kills Y, Z’s child. This is murder, inasmuch as the provocation was not given by the child, and the death of the child was not caused by accident or misfortune in doing an act caused by the provocation.

2. Y gives grave and sudden provocation to A. A, on this provocation, fires a pistol at Y, neither intending nor knowing himself to be likely to kill Z, who is near him, but out of sight. A kills Z. Here A has not committed murder, but merely culpable homicide.

2. Private defence

Culpable homicide is not murder if the offender in the exercise in good faith of the right of private defence of person or property, exceeds the power given to him by law and causes the death of the person against whom he is exercising such right of defence without premeditation, and without any intention of doing more harm than is necessary for the purpose of such defence.

 3. Acts of public servants

Culpable homicide is not murder if the offender, being a public servant or aiding a public servant acting for the advancement of public justice, exceeds the powers given to him by law, and causes death by doing an act which he, in good faith, believes to be lawful and necessary for the due discharge of his duty as such public servant and without ill-will towards the person whose death is caused.

4. Sudden fight

Culpable homicide is not murder if it is committed without premeditation in a sudden fight in the heat of passion upon a sudden quarrel and without the offender’s having taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner.

 5. Consent

Culpable homicide is not murder when the person whose death is caused, being above the age of eighteen years, suffers death or takes the risk of death with his own consent.

Illustration

A, by instigation, voluntarily causes Z, a person under eighteen years of age to commit suicide. Here, on account of Z’s youth, he was incapable of giving consent to his own death; A has therefore abetted murder.

Transfer of Malice

Take an example, A aims and fires his gun at B. But B moves and evades the bullet. The bullet, instead hits and kills C. Here, though A did not intend to kill C, he is liable for C’s murder.

This is called Principal of Transfer of Malice. It states that if a person, by doing anything which he intends or knows to be likely to cause death, commits culpable homicide by causing the death of any person, whose death he neither intends nor knows himself to be likely to cause, the culpable homicide committed by the offender is of the description of which it would have been if he had caused the death of the person whose death he intended or knew himself to he likely to cause.