Criminal liability.
Question 1
You should use up to 1600 words for this question.
Read the problem scenario and answer the question that follows it. The scenario is an amended and expanded version of the scenario to which you planned an answer for TMA 03 Question 2. You should reflect on your submission and feedback for TMA 03 when completing this assignment.
You should carry out some of your own research into the applicable law (for example, case law) to support your answer.
Gallodan Giants (‘Giants’) are a senior women’s rugby union team playing in the top league of the English rugby structure, which has recently become fully professional. One Saturday near the end of the season, the Giants are playing a league title game against the Monthorpe Mavericks (‘Mavericks’). This game will decide who wins this year’s league title.
It has been an exciting and emotional game and the referee has had to stop play on occasions during the game to calm the players down. The Giants are now ahead by two points with three minutes to go, when the Mavericks have the ball inside the Giants’ half of the pitch. If the Mavericks score, they will take the lead and almost certainly win the match, and the league.
Suddenly, Haya, a player for the Mavericks, breaks through the Giants’ defence and runs towards the Giants’ goal-line, looking almost certain to score. Kamala is the closest Giants player to Haya. Kamala runs across to meet Haya but is too late to make a fair tackle. Kamala is desperate to prevent Haya from scoring. Kamala is also still angry over a moment earlier in the game when she was about to take a kick and she was distracted by Haya who, she felt, was insulting her. As a result of all of this, Kamala kicks out wildly at Haya’s legs with no attempt to make a fair tackle. A loud crack is heard as Haya’s leg breaks and she collapses to the ground. The referee blows her whistle and calls the medics on to the pitch to attend to Haya. Kamala says nothing but walks towards the Giants’ dugout as she is sent off by the referee.
Seeing the incident, Sarah, another Mavericks player, is furious at Kamala’s actions. Once Kamala has left the pitch and Haya has been stretchered off by the medics, the game restarts. Shortly afterwards, the referee blows the final whistle, and the Giants win the game, and the league title.
After the final whistle, Miriam, the Head Coach for the Mavericks, is disgusted by the exuberant celebrations of the Giants’ coaching team. Curtis, a Coach for the Giants, starts running up and down near the Maverick’s dugout celebrating wildly. Overwhelmed by the surrounding noise, Miriam hallucinates that Curtis is coming quickly towards her with fists raised to attack her. Acting quickly to defend herself, Miriam picks up a metal rugby ball pump lying on the grass near her and hits Curtis repeatedly over the head with it, crushing his skull. Curtis dies immediately. Miriam is confused by what has happened. While she is in police custody, she is assessed by a doctor. Miriam is found to have a glioblastoma, a fast-growing brain tumour, that is causing her to hallucinate, anger very quickly and lose control of her actions. The tumour is successfully removed through brain surgery and the hallucinations and other symptoms stop.
Meanwhile, after the game, the players are getting changed in their team dressing rooms. Sarah, still angry at the injustice of the Giants winning because of Kamala’s attack on Haya, barges into the Giants’ dressing room to find Kamala. Sarah squares up to Kamala and goes to punch her on the shoulder. As she does so, Kamala’s teammate Juliana jumps in the way to protect Kamala. Sarah’s punch connects hard with Juliana’s chest. Juliana falls to the ground and appears to be having a heart attack. She is taken away in an ambulance but is declared dead at the hospital. The post mortem shows that Juliana had an undiagnosed heart condition, which made her more susceptible to cardiac arrest. Sarah is inconsolable when she is informed of Juliana’s death.
Advise Kamala and Sarah of their likely criminal liability in relation to, respectively, the injury to Haya and the death of Juliana.
You are instructed to consider the criminal liability of two people. For both parties, you should therefore:
• Use the IRAC method for answering law problem questions as set out in Section 6.1.4 of the Law undergraduate guide.
• Carry out some of your own research into the applicable law to support your answer.
• Structure your answer correctly as a problem answer and advise each relevant person separately, in turn.
• Examine all of the elements that need to be proven for any criminal offences you think are relevant to their actions.
• State the law in relation to these elements and apply it to the facts in the scenario, identifying which facts help to prove that each element has or has not been fulfilled.
• Identify the elements of any relevant defences for each of them and apply these to the facts to consider if they are likely to be successful.
• Reach a conclusion as to the likely liability of each relevant person, based on your analysis of the relevant offence(s) and defence(s).
(90 marks)
Question 2
You should use up to 200 words for this question.
Select one piece of developmental feedback from your tutor for TMA 03 that identifies an area for improvement relevant to this TMA, other than in relation to referencing technique. Complete a short piece of reflective writing explaining how you have implemented that feedback in completing Question 1 of TMA 04.
Learning outcomes
TMA 04 tests the following learning outcomes.
Knowledge:
• understand the law of fatal and non-fatal offences against the person
• understand the key criminal law defences relevant to the scenario.
Skills:
• analyse and apply the law in a logical and coherent way to a problem scenario
• present advice clearly and concisely in a form appropriate to the intended audience, using appropriate referencing
• reflect critically on your own performance and plan how to improve.
Guidance on writing your assignment
The Law undergraduate guide contains definitions of words used in TMA questions. It also gives advice on referencing in Section 8. You should read this guide before attempting TMA 04.
You can find further advice about referencing and plagiarism on the Referencing and plagiarism page of the Library website. This includes links to:
• Cite Them Right online, a practical guide to referencing that is commonly used by UK universities
• a downloadable and printable Quick guide to Cite Them Right referencing for Law modules.
This TMA is primarily designed to test your knowledge of elements of Units 12 (general principles of criminal law), 13, 14 and 16. In your criminal law textbook (Kyd et al., 2020) you may find it helpful to review the following sections to support your understanding of the law:
• Chapter 4, part II
• Chapter 7, part I
• Chapter 8, parts II–IV-A.
This TMA requires you to write a problem answer that shows understanding of the relevant areas of the law as well as demonstrating skills of identifying legal issues, analysing and applying the law. It also requires you to reflect on your TMA 03 feedback and discuss how you have implemented that feedback for TMA 04.
For Question 1, your answer should be written in standard English. It should not include any sort of list. You should not write in the first or second person (for example, ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘my’, ‘our’, ‘you’ or ‘your’); instead you should use phrases such as ‘A person is …’ or ‘This answer will …’. For Question 2, you may write in the first person, as it involves reflecting on your own performance.
Question 1
This question requires you to advise Kamala and Sarah of their likely criminal liability based on the scenario. You should only advise those people you are asked to. You are not asked to advise Miriam or any other parties in the scenario.
In addition to the resources suggested previously, you may find it helpful to look at the Answering Law problem questions activity. Information on how to approach a manslaughter problem question is also given in Unit 14.
Do not forget that you are likely to have prepared a plan to answer a problem scenario for TMA 03, and you should revisit your plan and review and reflect on your TMA 03 feedback from your tutor, before and while preparing this assignment. The problem scenario in this TMA is expanded and amended from the TMA 03 scenario, and you should prepare a plan for answering this TMA as part of your answer preparation, before you start writing up your answer. You should draw on your own research into the relevant law to develop your answer to this question.
Question 2
Question 2 requires you to identify and reflect upon a piece of developmental feedback received from your tutor about TMA 03, and demonstrate how you implemented that feedback when answering Question 1 of this TMA. The purpose of this question is to enable you to demonstrate personal development in your W203 studies.
To complete this question of the assessment, you are required to do the following:
• Identify a relevant piece of feedback from TMA 03.
• State in your own words what that feedback is telling you that you need to do, i.e. what your starting point is.
• Identify the specific actions, resources and/or guidance you considered to help you understand how to implement the feedback.
• Explain what you used the identified resources and guidance for, and what you learned from them.
• Implement what you learned in Question 1 of this TMA.
You may find it helpful to review the Essential legal skills and General study skills resources on the module website, as well as module units and activities, to assist you with implementing your feedback.
Reflection on your performance and planning for development are aspects of Personal Development Planning (PDP), and you may find it helpful to review this information on PDP.
Problem question advice
Before you write your TMA 04 you should use this guidance to help you think about gaining the highest mark you can achieve. You should also refer to the problem question guidance in Section 6.1.4 of the Law undergraduate guide. Note that the answer should be written in full sentences and paragraphs and comply with the guidance in Section 7.2 of the Law undergraduate guide; it should not include headings.
This criminal law problem question requires that you advise the people in the question as to their possible criminal responsibility. You should avoid starting your answer by commenting on their potential guilt or innocence or by restating the facts. Instead, you should outline the key offences and defences you will consider. Your answer should then be focused on advising each of the relevant parties, separately and in turn, about whether they are likely to have committed any offences, and have any applicable defences, addressing those that may be relevant based on the facts in the scenario. It should pay particular attention to making arguments about their likely criminal liability for issues that are legally complex or difficult to determine.
Before you start, you should carefully read the material identified as relevant at the beginning of this guidance . Read the factual scenario, making a note of any relevant legal issues that occur to you as you read. Plan to do this well in advance of the TMA submission date. You should spend some time conducting your own research to find relevant case law or other law that will help you to answer the question.
You need to structure your answer clearly and logically. Identify how the law applies to the circumstances of the people to whom you are instructed to give advice. For each person to be advised, once you have identified the legal issues raised, state the relevant law, apply it carefully to the facts provided, and reach a conclusion about the advice you will give (i.e. use the IRAC method).
Your answer should demonstrate that you understand the law and that you are able to translate the case law authorities and relevant academic argument into the most appropriate legal advice. To achieve this you need to:
• start your advice for each person with a short overview identifying the person you are advising, and briefly indicating the law that you will apply; you can then explain how that law applies to the facts relevant to that person
• give advice that is directed at the most relevant legal issues raised by the facts
• explain clearly how the law relates to the potential criminal behaviour
• make sure that you advise the person(s) to whom you are asked to give advice, as in ‘[name of individual to be advised] should be advised that …’
• the advice should be well written and clearly argued
• the legal argument should flow, building to a reasoned conclusion in terms of the advice given to the named individual.
You should avoid speculating about the facts contained in the problem question. Just accept them, and only interpret the information to the extent that a sensible reading of the facts permits. The facts of the question may point to criminal responsibility or to a lack of criminal responsibility. You need to be clear and logical in expressing your legal opinion.
The facts given in the problem question should be directly addressed and whether the offence is made out should be clearly argued. If you identify that an offence cannot be made out because a legally important element is missing, you should say so and explain your reasoning. Equally, for any relevant defences you should identify the elements of the defence that need to be proven, explain the statute or case law authority and then explain how it applies to the facts. If a defence is likely to succeed, you should explain why and what are the consequences of a successful defence. If there are no relevant defences, you should include that in your advice.
A strong legal argument will deal with each element of the offence or defence in question, focusing on the most relevant facts and law, and make a compelling argument relating to the potential criminal responsibility, or potential lack of criminal responsibility of the person(s) to be advised. It is important to tailor your advice to each person in the scenario, referring to specific facts in relation to legal points – avoid general statements as to the law. Every case is different so treat each individual as a distinct person and think about how the law applies to the evidence presented to you in each case
