CRM 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: De Minimis, Homicide, Epiglottis
2 May 2018
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Thursday February 1st
• Take our iti as ou fid the, geeral priiple of Thi skull rule
• Does’t atter if the hae a pre-existing condition, if you smash someone in the head
and they eventually die but they die because of some kind of unique pre-existing
condition where head trauma leads to death
• The accused conduct need not be the sole and operative cause for the death in order for
causation to be established
• Aused atios are a sigifiat otriutig ause to the iti’s death
• Other factors are taken into consideration
• s.222(1) causation for the purposes of homicide, person commits homicide when
directly or indirectly by any means causes the death of a human being
• builds in causation into an element of that
• courts take a broad and liberal interpretation of causation
• R.v.Younger, the accused abducted a child and left him a vehicle the child died of
hypothermia, murder can be caused without the direct application of force
• A perso a ause the death of aother hua eig ee if the do’t diretl appl
force
• S.231(5) of criminal code, when a person can be charged for first degree murder even if
the did’t pla ad preeditate it if It is doe hile arrig out a other uer of
offences
• S.224-226 lay out a number of other provisions pertaining to causation, they deal with
intervening causes, somewhere in between someone else is a cause of death
• S.224 proper means, where a person by act or omission does anything that results in the
death of human being, he causes the death of human being not withstanding that death
from the cause might have been prevented by resorting to proper means; regardless if
proper eas ould hae saed that perso’s life
• S. 225, proper or improper treatment applied in good faith, where a person causes to a
human being a bodily injury that is of itself of a dangerous nature and from which death
results, he causes the death of that human being notwithstanding that the immediate
cause of death is proper or improper treatment applied in good faith
• Common law principles
• R.v.Smithers 1977, think skull principle, the accused kicked the victim in the abdomen
resulting in the victims death, part of the cause of death was a pre-existing medical
condition, malfunctioning epiglottis, part of the cause of the victims death was he
choked on his own vomit, this may not have killed someone else but in this case it did, a
well-recognized principle one who assaults another must take their victim as they find
them, standard of causation, standard was at least a contributing factor to the death
then they could be held to have caused that death, de minimis standard
• R.v.Cribbin , further reinforced the de minimis standard, accused engaged in assault
against the victim who eventually died but others had assaulted the victim, in these
types of instances the same standard applies, if the accused can be said to have engaged
in behaviour that is at least a contributing factor outside of a minimal range; proof of
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