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Murder is not limited to intentional killing
Dear Editor,
The proposition that a charge of murder can only arise where it is proven that an accused person intended to kill or intended to inflict grievous bodily harm, knowing that death was the likely consequence is, at best, incomplete and, at worst, misleading.
The criminal law has long recognised that there are circumstances in which a person’s conduct is so outrageously dangerous and so utterly indifferent to the value of human life that it is treated as the legal equivalent of an intention to kill. However, in this instance the evidence must satisfy an exceptionally high threshold.
Where it can be established beyond a reasonable doubt that an individual acted with extreme recklessness or what is often described as a “depraved indifference” or “wanton disregard” for human life, the requisite mental element for murder may be satisfied.
The law is concerned not only with what a person hopes will happen but also with what that person knowingly risks. A conscious decision to proceed in the face of an obvious probability of death may demonstrate such contempt for human life that the distinction between recklessness and intent becomes legally insignificant.
To insist that only a proven intention to kill can justify a murder charge ignores the fact that in the most egregious cases, extreme recklessness may itself supply the malice that the law requires.
And as an aside, did one local commentator not characterise, in a cavalier fashion, the sinking of the M.V. Barima as a mass killing. If so, who is the first in the chain of culpability?
Yours faithfully,
Roopnauth Hardyal
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