Murder and Culpable Homocide

Section 299 Culpable homicide

• Whoever causes death by doing an act
• with the intention of causing death or
• with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death or
• with the knowledge that he is likely by such act to cause death
• commits the offence of culpable homicide

What is culpable homicide?

Section 299 defines culpable homicide as the act of causing death with one of these:

• with the intention of causing death,
• with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death,
• with the knowledge that the act is likely to cause death.

It is not necessary that any intention should exist with regard to the particular person whose death is caused, as in the familiar example of a shot aimed at one person killing another, or poison intended for one being taken by another.

The intention demanded by the section must stand in some relation to a person who either is alive, or who is believed by the accused to be alive.

The knowledge must have reference to the particular circumstances in which the accused is placed.

Is a man guilty of culpable homicide if he shoots at the stump of a tree?

If a man kills another by shooting at what he believes to be a third person whom he intends to kill, but which is in fact the stump of a tree, it is clear that he would be guilty of culpable homicide. This is because though he had no criminal intention towards any human being actually in existence, he had such an intention towards what he believed to be a living human being.

Is a man guilty of culpable homicide if he shoots at a living human being believing him to be dead?
The intention of the accused must be judged not in the light of the actual circumstances, but in the light of what he supposed to be the circumstances. It follows that a man is not guilty of culpable homicide if his intention was directed only to what he believed to be a lifeless body.

Section 300 Murder
Except in cases hereinafter excepted: culpable homicide is murder

First- if the act by which death is caused o is done with the intention of causing death

Secondly – if the act by which death is caused is done with the intention of causing such bodily injury as the offender knows likely to cause death of the person to whom the harm is caused

Thirdly–

• if the act by which death is caused
• is done with the intention of causing bodily injury to any person
• and the bodily injury intended to be inflicted
• is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death

Fourthly

• if the person committing the act knows
• that it is so imminently dangerous
• that it must, in all probability, cause death
• or such bodily injury as is likely to cause death
• and commits such act without any excuse
• for incurring the risk of causing death or such injury as aforesaid