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The article discusses the case of United States v. Slatten regarding the mandatory sentence handed down in a manslaughter trial. It reports on the details of the manslaughter case, the position of the defendants as military contractors, and the finding of the D.C. Circuit Court that the sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment,.

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The article analyzes the sentencing structure and criminal justice system of Canada. Topics discussed include the classification of offences as enacted by the Canadian Parliament, laws for regulating the trial patterns for cases related to manslaughter and aggravated assault along with rules of the Supreme Court of Canada on claims of drunken driving.

The article discusses reconciling medical and legal conceptions of surgery in places such as Australia, focusing on the imposition of liability against surgeons who conduct futile surgeries. The High Court of Australia's ruling in the 2012 case Patel v. The Queen, which deals with manslaughter and grevious bodily harm charges against a surgeon, is mentioned. The relationship between medicine and the law is addressed, along with cases involving medically inappropriate (futile) treatments.

The year 1935 was an ominous year for European peace. Hitler's Germany began to rearm; Mussolini's Italy provoked a major diplomatic crisis by invading Abyssinia. Against this background it seemed extraordinary that Edward Russell, 26th Baron de Clifford, had to be tried for manslaughter by his peers in the house of lords. Such trials of peers had once been perceived as powerful theatrical examples of the place of the aristocracy in British society. By 1935, de Clifford's trial, the last ever of a peer in the house of lords, was an anachronism and his ultimate acquittal seemed like an outdated piece of class justice. Behind the scenes of an apparent farce in which justice was to be administered by men garbed in pantomime robes, there was, however, a serious issue about interpreting the law of manslaughter, which sparked a concerted, but clandestine, attempt by the then director of public prosecutions to undermine the credibility of the lord chief justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a court case that concerned an appeal against a ruling at Newcastle Crown Court that it would not be open to the jury to convict either respondent of manslaughter. In R v JM and SM, the trial judge halted the proceedings based on the meaning of the term "dangerousness" in the context of constructive manslaughter. The case R v Church is also discussed.

The article reports on the manslaughter trial of seven seismic experts from the Italian Civil Protection Department (DPC) National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks regarding claims that they failed to warn the public prior to the April 6, 2009 4.1 magnitude earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy in which 30 people were killed. Topics include the series of tremors prior to the earthquake in the region, the objections of the international scientific community to the trial over concerns of the reliability of earthquake prediction, and evidence that the expert panel was primarily concerned with reassuring the public. The defendants include volcanologist Franco Barberi, seismologist Claudio Eva, and seismic engineer Mauro Dolce.

The article details the Swansea Crown Court case Townsend and Evans in England which stemmed from the death of 16-year-old Carly Townsend from drugs overdose at her mother's home. Her mother, Andrea Townsend and her half-sister, Gemma Evans, were convicted with manslaughter by gross negligence. The article cites the defendants' failure to aid Carly who had overdosed on heroin provided by Gemma. It also describes how the court dealt with the duty of care criterion and the appeal filed by Gemma's counsel.

Whilst it is true that the one-punch killer has crossed a moral threshold and acted wrongfully by committing an assault, his victim's death may be both unforeseen and unforeseeable. The gap between what was foreseen/foreseeable and death may thus be considerable. This article suggests it is too great; convicting the killer of manslaughter places too much weight on the element of luck. The task then is to identify an appropriate principle for regulating the gap and in the course of tackling this task the article considers and rejects, inter alia, a recent recommendation by the Law Reform Commission of Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a gestation period extending over thirteen years, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 is a disappointment. It is limited in its scope, restricted in its range of potential defendants and regressive to the extent that, like the discredited identification doctrine before it, it allows its focus to be deflected from systemic fault to individual fault. As a result the Act may not curb the type of short-sighted risk management decisions that can lead to the deaths of innocent workers, consumers and members of the public. Further, by requiring DPP consent to prosecute, the Act threatens to entangle corporate manslaughter prosecutions in the political process to an unacceptable degree. Despite these weaknesses, the symbolic significance of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 may ultimately transcend its methodological deficiencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the admissibility of autopsy reports as evidenced in a criminal trial of accused murder or manslaughter. The author categorizes autopsy reports as hearsay evidence that must pass the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution before it would be admissible in courts. According to the article, the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on the Crawford v. Washington case became the primary concern of the Framers in drafting the Confrontation Clause.

The article discusses legal issues related to involuntary manslaughter in the U.S. An actor found guilty of involuntary manslaughter does not defy the law. He cannot defy it for the reason that he does not perceive the risk he is taking. If one does not perceive the risk he is about to take, then he cannot know that the risk is one the law demands he not take. The hardship imposed on such an actor is thus imposed in order to censure him for weakness.

The article presents information on several cases filed in Australia as of November 2006. The question arising from the trial of the person accused of manslaughter is to whether the judge could take the verdict of the jury on a Sunday. In the case of Tisdale and Ballanday Pty. Ltd., the former sought an injunction to prevent the latter from exercising the right to vote as joint holder of a share. A trial judge dismissed a cross-claim for inter alia a declaration of conversion of certain equipment and inquiry as to damages.

This article presents some psychosocial and juridical aspects of voluntary manslaughters that occurred in Costa Rica during the 1998-1999 period. The study is based on guilty verdicts given by the justice courts. The outcomes indicate that there are no significant differences between manslaughter and murder; fire weapons were the main way for committing murder; nearly one in four offenders had a criminal record, and in two thirds of the cases, the victim and the offender knew each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Canada in 1993, Karla Flomolka was convicted of two counts of manslaughter in an Ontario court after entering into a plea bargain, which led. to a reduced charge and sentence in return for her testimony against her husband, Paul Bernardo. Following her highly publicized trial, Karla Homolka was sentenced to twelve years in prison. Two years later, Paul Bernardo was declared a dangerous offender and was condemned to life imprisonment, for the murders of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. Karla Homolka was initially presented as a battered woman fearing for her life; however, this construction changed during the legal proceedings. This article examines the dichotomous construction of endangerment and dangerousness as applied to the socio-legal construction of Karla Homolka. Three data sources were used: the trial transcripts from Karla Homolka's plea agreement, Homolka's examination In Chief, cross-examination, and re-examination at Paul Bernardo's trial, and the Report to the Attorney General of Ontario on Certain Matters Relating to Karla Homolka. Homolka has been portrayed as representative of both the mythical depiction of the overtly dangerous and/or violent woman and as a woman in danger. This dichotomy of in danger and dangerous, modulates our understanding of Homolka, and ultimately lends to the creation of an even more extreme characterization, that of the sexually violent fe- male predator. This article chronicles the evolution of our understanding of Homolka as a woman in danger and as a figure of dangerousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how a corporal punishment case was being handled in Great Britain by taking into account the "Eastbourne Manslaughter," a case involving Thomas Hopley who was accused of killing his pupil Reginald Cancellor during an act of corporal punishment. The case provoked immediate interest, being the crime that had most firmly taken hold of the public mind. The case had been a redefining point in how corporal punishment was treated in British law. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Hopley trial was an important precedent in any legal consideration of corporal punishment.

In this note we offer a critical examination of the Court of Appeal's decision in Kennedy No.2 and highlight the continuing uncertainty over the liability for manslaughter of those who supply drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on a trial involving arson and manslaughter by an illegal act. Death of the victim due to the burning of a disused public house; Issue on the existence of duty of care regarding the defendant's appeal; Types of manslaughter.

Focuses on the ruling of the Court of Appeals in Great Britain on the case "R v. Smith," which the court take into account the defendant's obsessive and jealous nature sufficient for provocation as an excuse to reduce the offense from murder to manslaughter. Facts of the case; Merits of the case; Comments from Alan Reed for the decision.

This article discusses issues related to the minimum culpability for criminal homicide. In 1996, the English Law Commission recommended the abolition of one variety of involuntary manslaughter, namely unlawful and dangerous act manslaughter, on the ground that there is insufficient moral blame-worthiness for causing death--the defendant need not be aware of the risk of causing any personal harm at all; all that is required is that a reasonable person would have foreseen the risk of doing some harm. The traditional view is that subjectivism implies that a person should foresee harm if he or she is to be properly convicted of an offence of causing that harm. Pure objectivism ignores the accused's personal characteristics and simply compares him/her with the hypothetical reasonable person. The dominant philosophy on which many criminal or penal systems are based is the capacity theory of responsibility. Whatever the merits of determinism, the criminal law is based on the assumption that a majority of people have the ability to choose whether to conform their behavior to the law's expectations. The major alternative theory is the character theory which bases responsibility upon judgments about the character of the agent: actions for which a person who is held fully responsible are those in which his/her usual character is centrally expressed.