Apologies... I missed your post. I do have to take issue with what you've said.
It's not a case of the law .."Not quite seeing it [death by dangerous driving]...as murder."..it doesn't see it as murder atall. I can give you a good example. You'll recall the death of PC Andrew Harper when three thieves..young men,stole a quad bike and towed it away. PC Harper, had gone to the stationary vehicle with the intention of arresting the occupants but the driver drove off and PC Harper was entangled in the rope securing the quad bike to the back of the vehicle. CPS actually charged the three with murder on the grounds that they must have known that their actions would likely result in the death of the officer. Had PC Harper survived it would have been attempted murder .As I said in my original post, a finding of guilt for murder requires that an 'intent' has to be proven and beyond any reasonable doubt and please note that Garry has also confirmed it..Post #51..and Garry is very knowledgeable about law..The jury believed what the two passengers claimed..ie they were unaware that PC Harper was entangled in the ropes behind the vehicle. The driver had pleaded guitly to 'unlawful act [the theft] manslaughter .'The other two were charged manslaughter under 'joint enterprise'.
On sentencing.. What I don't agree with is that because the driver pleaded guilty to manslaughter his sentence was reduced to 16 years from 21 years. He was obviously advised to plead guilty by his lawyer because it was obvious that he was guilty. When it's unambiguously obvious that a defendant is guilty then the inducement for a guilty plea by way of a reduced sentence ,should not apply. In my opinion justice should not be subject in this way, in such circumstances, to cost savings and saving witnesses having to give evidence that they may find distressing.
You say ...'the mere act of driving the wrong way down a motorway or busy road on purpose will likely result in the death of someone' There has to be a difference between murder/attempted murder and manslaughter and it's down to mens rea. ie..intent. It's about the state of mind of the offender rather than the act. Whilst both result in the death of someone, one is when the offender intended to kill and the other did not intend to kill. You're aware of this anyway but I had to 'lay it out'. Sentencing reflects this difference too. Murder requires a mandatory life sentence whereas manslaughter doesn't.
The car v the gun. You say...Such an act [driving the wrong way on a carriageway] will inevitably result in death. No it won't. It's possible ,may even be likely ,as you claim, but not an inevitable outcome. We're back to mens rea..'intent' .again.Is the car being used as a weapon ?
You go on to say.. "conversely shooting into a crowd may not [kill someone] if you don’t hit an organ. " If someone shoots a gun into a crowd of people the intention is not to wound any of them but to kill them . If a shooter (as we hear them called these days) is charged he/she will be charged with murder for those killed and attempted murder for those injured.
I do appreciate where you're coming from and I also appreciate you getting back to me but your logic is off the mark and doesn't align with what is, and should be, the definitions of murder/attempted murder and manslaughter. I can cite Garry again on this. Post #51.........."it's obvious to me that the existing legislation is enough.....
Your understanding is basically but not completely sound.
1. The required intent for a murder conviction is to kill or to cause serious harm (grevious bodily harm) that results in death, and murder is a bit of an oddity in itself because the offence is committed under common law, it's so obvious that it's wrong to murder people that we don't need to have a specific law that forbids it, that's common sense and the pragmatic approach that the law should always take, and occasionally actually does.
2. The "discount" for pleading guilty at the first opportunity is another example of legal pragmatism; whether you like it or not, it makes sense. And the level of evidence isn't relevant, it's done to encourage the guilty to plead guilty. It isn't perfect, partly because it also "encourages" the innocent to plead guilty in order to get a lighter sentence, but it's what it is.
3. Whenever anything bad happens, someone always demands extra laws, but arguably we have far too many laws anyway. Offences against common law are pretty obvious, we also have a constant stream of extra legislation that nobody, including lawyers, ever really undertands, many of these new laws are passed by parliament and are often poorly drafted, making a lot of extra, highly-paid work for expensive barristers, but it gets far worse because of secondary legislation, additions to the laws that aren't even agreed by parliament, see
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/understanding-legislation. Criminal law (compared to civil law) is relatively straightforward, but even the police don't understand it, not their fault, there's just too much for anyone to understand.
Manslaughter is, in a way, very different from murder, in the sense that there doesn't need to be intent, and the charge creates a middle ground that covers the ground between murder and accident. It does this because manslaughter requires conduct that was grossly negligent, i.e. the responsible person didn't care about the consequences of his/her actions. It isn't that simple, but basically covers it. A bit more detail here
https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-...anticide-and-causing-or-allowing-death-or#a03
Guns have been mentioned by way of example. They're a bit of an oddity, because guns are regarded to be expressly designed and constructed to kill, and because of this, if a gun is used and results in death then it's murder, not manslaughter, regardless of the consequences. One of my daughters is very keen on "paper punching" with a very specialised rifle designed specifically for shooting paper targets, and several of my own guns are designed specifically for shooting clay pigeon targets, but if one of these was used to kill someone then the law would ignore the distinction and the gun would be described as a weapon. That doesn't apply to cars, kitchen knives or many other products designed for a different purpose but which can also be used as weapons.
This can cause its own injustice - shoot someone dead, and it has to be a murder charge or nothing. The Chris Kaba case is an example of this, what are the chances of a jury convicting a police officer of murder when, according to his evidence, he made an honest mistake?
Maybe I'm being unfair, but one of the problems, as I see it, is that the police tend to avoid confrontation with potentially violent criminals if they consider there to be any risk to themselves - PC Harper was a notable exception, he did his job even though he was on his own, but the fact that he died as a result may justify police inaction.
