English Court system (modern day) conviction and/or sentencing

[goldvermilion87]

I've done a bit of research, and I want to have one of my characters convicted of voluntary manslaughter in England.

First of all, to check that -- does voluntary manslaughter sound reasonable when the character did not premeditate his act, was under the influence, and had been provoked?  I was reading around and that seemed to fit reasonably well,

Comments

[chase_glasslace]

I wanted to make a comment on the intoxication point. Intoxication is not a defence in the same way that provocation is a defence, but I disagree with other posters who have said that it would only be considered in mitigation during sentencing. Voluntary intoxication negates the mens rea for a particular group of offences, called offences of specific intent. These are crimes where the defendant not only does an act, but also intends/is reckless to a specific consequence. Murder is an offence of specific intent, and is therefore covered by intoxication, but manslaughter is one of basic intent and is therefore not. This means that if the defendant in your situation was found to have been so intoxicated that he was incapable of forming the requisite intent to murder or do GBH, his conviction would be reduced from murder to manslaughter. Bear in mind that this is requires a level of intoxication which would go beyond just being a bit drunk, though.

This mainly comes from the case of DPP v Majewski [1977] AC 443. I don't think there's been any recent legislative reform on the subject, but others may have additional information. You can also see that the CPS confirms this on the page that you linked to earlier under the section of diminished responsibility: here.

Of course he could also argue loss of control, which would have the same effect. Loss of control comes under voluntary manslaughter. Intoxication would probably go under unlawful act manslaughter, which is involuntary. It's more likely that you wouldn't hear the words voluntary or involuntary in the verdict, though.

In a murder trial, the jury are allowed to return a verdict of not guilty but then add a verdict of guilty for an alternative offence, as long as it falls within the bounds of the Criminal Law Act 1967 s 6(2), which you can find here. This means that they're allowed to return a verdict of guilty for manslaughter, even if the CPS didn't lay them at the beginning of the process.