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Causation in Criminal Law

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The question is about the general principles of causation.How it proves one's guilty conduct as causation is part of the Actus Reus of a crime primarily the defendents conduct causing the prohibited result.First we shall see causation role in Criminal Law then we shall analyze what we need to establish for there to be a Factual and Legal causation.Then we shall see what intervening factors that can break the chain of causation.Next we will consider purpose Law Reform on the Subject of causation. The key role played by causation in the criminal law is that it must be understood that the casual requirement is not only a requirement that a criminal harm occurred and that it the accused acted with the intention,recklessness or negligence demanded by the crime charged.The absolute minimum is that the prosecution must prove a link between a unlawful act of the accused and the criminal harm,such as that is appropriate for the individual accused,rather than a different party to be accountable for the act.A simple illustration the type of link which must be made is as such: "A delivers a lethal dose of poison to B in form of a poisoned glass of wine.However,before the poison could take effect.B suddenly choke on a piece of bone from the fish he was having for dinner and died.  It can be appreciated that A did not,in the manner of which we are generally disposed to perceive relations of cause and effect,the cause of death.The cause of death is as we would say and also the law would say is because of B choking on the piece of bone from his dinner. It is on occasion it is questioned whether any point is served by causal requirement in crimes.In tort,establishing casual responsibility for a given harm is essential to it's function,namely to attribute the burden of loss and quantify that loss.Without harm there would be nothing to be remedied.Without causation there would be no link between the defendant and the harm.With crime,on the other hand,given the many justifications for and reasons of the punishment it has been argued less sensible to focus on the cause of the event rather than say the culpability or dangerousness of the defendants actions.To do this could place unnecessary importance on the accidents of fate. A.J.Ashworth in his "Belief,Intent,Criminal Attempts and The Role Of Resulting Harm (1988).Has given considerable argument that since punishment is desert based there is no moral basis for differentiating between murder and attempt of murder.A defendant he argued deserve punishing for he attempted to carry out.He suggested offences might be redefined to illustrate this moral basis. William Wilson disagrees that abandoning the source of harm as a meeting point of criminal liability would disregard a major retributive concern.Having causal requirement allow us to identify and to put into record how exactly the victim was wronged.This allows punishment to reflect the extent of harm.Without the crime of manslaughter as an example to deal with cases where the victim died because of the beating.Is it not the death,rather than the act of beating,for which we hold the defendant liable though punishment?Indeed without creation of harm we may not distinguish whether the defendant's act was to be approve or deplored.Would William Tell be revered today if he had missed the apple and shot his son instead? To liable for a result of a crime the defendant must be shown to be the factual cause of the harm and it to be fair to blame the harm upon the defendant-it must be fair to hold him answerable to the harm.In short the defendant must be the factual and legal cause of the result in question.In most cases once the defendant is found to be factual cause of the result it would be fair to hold him answerable since a direct link will be establish between a unlawful act of the defendant and the harm done upon the victim. Even if

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