Beatty, J.F., and the Law of Manslaughter

Authors

  • Larry C. Wilson

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/alr182

Abstract

In this article, the author argues that the recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions in R. v. Beatty and R. v. J.F. have clarified several of the issues that have plagued the increasingly complicated offence of manslaughter. In particular, the decisions address the redundancy among the many manslaughter provisions in the Criminal Code, the need to define a clear separation between actus reus and mens rea, and the need to establish distinct categories of objective fault for different types of manslaughter offences. The author examines the legal background of these decisions as well as the current state of the law. He concludes by identifying emerging issues relating to the offence of manslaughter, arguing that the law remains convoluted and in need of urgent reform despite the progress made in the Beatty and J.F. decisions.

Downloads

Published

2010-04-01

Issue

Vol 47, No 3: Rethinking Canadian Homicide Law

Section

Articles

License

For Editions following and including Volume 61 No. 1, the following applies.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License

For Editions prior to Volume 61 No. 1, the following applies.

Author(s) retain original copyright in the substantive content of the titled work, subject to the following rights that are granted indefinitely:

  1. Author(s) grant the Alberta Law Review permission to produce, publish, disseminate, and distribute the titled work in electronic format to online database services, including, but not limited to: LexisNexis, QuickLaw, HeinOnline, and EBSCO;
  2. Author(s) grant the Alberta Law Review permission to post the titled work on the Alberta Law Review website and/or related websites.
  3. Author(s) agree that the titled work may be used for educational or instructional purposes and/or in educational or instructional materials. The author(s) acknowledge that the titled work is subject to other such "fair dealing" provisions and applicable legislation.
  4. Author(s) grant a limited license to those accessing the titled work from an electronic database or an Alberta Law Review website to download the titled work onto their computer and to print a copy for their own personal, non-commercial use, subject to proper attribution.

To use the journal's content elsewhere, permission must be obtained from the author(s) and the Alberta Law Review.