Murder, or tragic accident?

Depends on his intention with the brick.

To cause harm , then yes it's murder maybe reduced to Manslaughter - Not sure you can say Tragic accident & criminal damage though.

But clearly he had intent as he picked up the brick & threw it.

Intent to do what though? murder someone? or just break the window? Isn't this why an accident is called an accident? Something that wasn't meant to happen/intentional. I guess that's why there are laws and definations of the law, very fine line there.

I slapped my sister on the face when we were young. Her nose began to bleed and bled for many hours. I didn't mean to make her nose bleed. I only meant to slap her face. Accidental nose bleed.

The nosebleed wasn't an accident - it was caused by your decision to slap her in the face.

Death not an accident - caused by brick being thrown. I wouldn't have said murder though. I would have thought (with no criminal/legal knowledge admittedly) it was manslaughter.

For it to be murder there has to be malice aforethought. If everything written is true I would expect the charge would be manslaughter rather than murder.

Mens rea - ie what was he thinking.

He threw the brick through the window but did he take any care to make sure no-one was on the other side of the window? It's reasonble that if you hit someone with a brick you may kill them.

This is why there's always arguments over what's murder and what's manslaughter, many think its only murder if you carried out the action with the sole intent to kill and that's not the case.

Definitaly not a tragic accident though, it's murder or manslaughter unless there's some major fact missing.

The question of intent is the crucial one - but I think it could still be a murder charge even if that was the last thing on his mind: I've seen murder convictions in similar circumstances.

In fact, there's a current parallel in that case where the barmaid got accidentally killed by flying glass, and her assailant is now up on a murder charge. He clearly never intended to murder her, and probably never intended to murder anyone, but the CPS clearly thinks that they have a case based on the fact that he equally clearly intended to do harm to someone. (But this case hasn't come to court yet, so it could go either way).

Yes, I totally agree with the question of intent being the crucial thing here. Again, that's why we have laws and rules. I'd hate to be the decider!

Think before you act/speak etc. I know of a case where a young man was approached and hit for nothing. He hit back and his attacker fell and banged his head and died. I'm exasparated that I now cant remember if he was charged with murder or if it was a case of accidental death. But to me it's the same thing. And it all boils down to the intention of a persons actions.

Might be murder, almost certainly manslaughter.

Definately not an 'accident'.

Yes, but surely a case like that would have pleaded self-defence? The law allows you to use reasonable force to defend yourself, and the attacker happening to fall and fatally bang his head sounds well within the bounds of "reasonable" to me.

Yes, I did think of manslaughter, not murder myself. Interesting replies here though, that's why I thought I would put it to Hitched, for a more varied response.

But the responses are based on what you are telling us, when your account of it is pretty much hearsay i d imagine.

if the brick was thrown through the window i dont think it would be that hard to reach "malice aforethought". lets face it, throwing a brick is pretty malicious.

From reading the story would this be the case.

He was thrown out of a house by somebody

He was raged by this

Found a brick & intended it to be thrown at somebody (person who threw him out) - can't see why he would throw a brick into his friends house, but maybe wrong there.

Intended person was not hit, but brick hit the friend?

Would this not be a similar situation to Rhys Jones case - that bullet was not intended to hit him, Sean Mercer was found guilty of murder.

That would definitely be murder - the intent to harm is there, and it doesn't matter whether the victim was the intended one. It also doesn't matter whether he intended to kill the other guy - the crucial point is that the act of hurling the brick wasn't accidental.

In the law surrounding homicide, this is usually referred to as 'transferred malice'. You need mens rea (the intention) and actus reus (the act) - it doesn't have to be that the two are directed at the same person.

All a bit academic as we don't know the details. However, self defence is a tricky area. It doesn't mean you can use equal force to that used initially against you (though I appreciate that's not what you're saying MrJK) - because it is NOT allowed to be punitive / retaliation. If there was a possibilty to walk away, then self defence wouldn't work. So say the above scenario happened in a crowded bar, and the initial victim could have just run to a bouncer - they'd be very unlikely to have a self defence plea accepted.

IIRC, self defence is a complete defence. i.e. it doesn't reduce your sentence, it literally gets you off completely. Because of that, it's very hard to plead. Circumstances have to be right, but there is a partial defence of provocation. In the above example, the initial victim might plead provocation to reduce the charge from murder to manslaughter. But all dependent on a lot of legal gubbins!! Going back to the OP for example, I very much doubt being thrown out of a party would be accepted as provocation!

Oh, and just to add - absolutely not 'a tragic accident' in my view, or that of the law I think. You can't just go hurling bricks around, no matter if you're normally a nice guy. The poor victim. I'm sure their family wouldn;t think it was just an accident. Probably a bit of an assumption to wonder how much alcohol was involved... but the law takes a very dim view of involuntary intoxication, and I believe it's right to do so.

It is tragic though.

Manslaughter. If you drink and drive and kill someone I believe it is manslaughter. In this case he was drunk threw a brick and killed his best friend. I believe it is manslaughter and criminal damage not to mention drunk disorderly.

It is very tragic though ☹️

Oh and if the brick was intended for someone else I would also add attempted gbh with a lethal weapon on top.

If it was just a brick through the window to cause damage its still manslaughter. you dont get in a car drunk and hit someone deliberately and get manslaughter you don't intend to but you should know those could be the consequences if you do. I dont suppose drunk you would think your best mate would be killed by a rebounding brick though.

There was a case on msn news yesterday about a lady who set fire to her husbands penis to stop him cheating. It killed him she was charged with murder.......

Probably manslaughter, unless the curtains/blinds were drawn, he couldn't see anyone and actually did just mean to break a window.

It's really quite differnt to the Rhys Jones case Mrs JMP. As I understand it (and my knowledge comes from statements from the police, judge and prosecutors, not personal knowledge) The bullet (the second fired, the first hit a container) hit Rhys because it was the wrong type of bullet and Merced did not know how to fire a gun with the wrong bullet, meaning the bullet went in the wrong direction but the crucial thing making it murder was he fired a third bullet several seconds after hitting Rhys and him hitting the ground. He still wanted to kill his original target, even after seen a young boy in bright colours (ie couldn't miss him) fall to the gound.

Thanks for the replies. I can see now why Stephan has been charged with murder. My initial thought was tragic accident, but looking at reasoning, I don't go with my initial gut reaction. Thanks to everyone for pointing out the legalites and reasoning behind the charge.

I do feel incredibly sorry for Sam's family. I don't know how I would cope if my child was killed by their best friend. I doubt I could ever forgive such a stupid act of destruction leading to a death.

Thanks for the replies. I can see now why Stephan has been charged with murder. My initial thought was tragic accident, but looking at reasoning, I don't go with my initial gut reaction. Thanks to everyone for pointing out the legalites and reasoning behind the charge.

I do feel incredibly sorry for Sam's family. I don't know how I would cope if my child was killed by their best friend. I doubt I could ever forgive such a stupid act of destruction leading to a death.

That's not properly analogous though because DbyDD has its own separate statutory regime with prescriptive types of liability.

It's not possible to tell from the limited facts but it sounds like the level of 'intent' is possibly sufficient to support a charge of murder, and almost certainly one of manslaughter (culpable homicide in scotland). Without further facts it is impossible to tell which is more appropriate as a charge- even with the full facts, academics would possibly disagree, and as for a jury.... (don't get me started).

In practice, what will have most effect on the outcome is what the prosecution service decide to charge him with- more often thnn not if it is borderline between murder/ culp hom, they will charge with the more serious offence and accept a plea to a less serious charge in order to secure conviction without trial. I'd be very surprised if this case didn't result in plea bargaining because, in the absence of a defence (and there are only very few limited ones available in such case), there is almost certainly a case of some kind to answer here.

Gone

It doesn't really clear anything up ? but the bit in bold would explain why a murder charge is being brought as far as I know. Poor aim is no defence and insofar as self-defence is, it's clear that the force he was using was disproportionate.

Certainly a tragedy, but not an accident.

WSS - no mess cleared up. A terrible tragedy and probably a drunken action that will be regretted forever.

The One Who Knows, I have no idea who you are or how you found this thread but I really don't think you should be posting that here. I'm assuming you are connected in some way and people like us on a public forum really don't need to know the details. I would also be worried at the facts being in such a public domain and that they could in some way have an impact on the case.

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