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Famous Quote/Definition for Manslaughter

  • 04-02-2008 4:42pm
    #1
    morbo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 149 ✭✭


    This is just a quick question about an old quote that I cannot for the life of me find a source for. The quote is something like, “manslaughter is the unlawful killing of one ‘natural person’ (it could have been ‘human being’) by another, without ...”

    Anyone got a reference for which case that was in? It’s the quote that lead to all sorts of confusion about whether or not you can prosecute a company for manslaughter as the Lord in question said ‘natural person’. However, it was the 16th or 17th century (I think?) and corporations didn’t exist at the time, and he only said natural person to distinguish between humans and wild animals. Anyway, the jurists interpreted it to mean that corporations were immune from prosecution for ages.

    I had it in an essay stored on my laptop, but when I sent my laptop off to be repaired, they decided to just give me a replacement, which is all well and good, apart from the almost complete FYP essay I had saved on it. (I also had it saved on my phone and my home PC, but I dropped my phone into Cork Harbour while out sailing, and 2 days later my house got broken into and my PC was stolen. These sorts of things happen to me all the time. I’m completely jinxed!) Oddly, the only other things stolen were a grass box for my lawnmower, and the next-door neighbours’ dog?

    Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’ve looked through my books, most of the UL library, and Googled it ‘til the cows come home, but to no avail. It is actually driving me mad. I remember reading it in 3 books. I own those 3 books. It’s not in those books anymore. Frustration is building.


Comments

  • #2
    Tom Young
    Legal Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 4,338 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tom Young


    Try 1861 Offences Against the Person Act for the mens rea defintion. S.5.


  • #3
    johnnyskeleton
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 14,535 Mod ✭✭✭✭johnnyskeleton


    Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of another person.

    When it comes to corporate manslaughter, the confusion comes from the question of whether a company can form the requisite mens rea to commit the offence e.g. Att Gen's Reference (No. 2 of 1999).


  • #4
    morbo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 149 ✭✭morbo


    I have those. The quote I'm thinking of definitely came from a case over 200 years ago. It came before the Lord Chancellor Edward, First Barron Thurlow made the his remark that a company has "no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked." He based his judgement on the quote I'm thinking of, I just can't find it. It's driving me crazy. I'm almost certain the quote is from around the 1540s to the 1620s, but I could be way off. This is so bloody frustrating.


  • #5
    dK1NG
    Closed Accounts Posts: 661 ✭✭✭dK1NG


    Might be worth having a gander at Coke's Institutes (mid-1600s) or Stephens History of Criminal Law.


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