Citation

Rosenberg R. British Journal of American Legal Studies 2017; 6(2): 279-299.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017)

DOI

10.1515/bjals-2017-0014

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The goal of this essay is to identify and discuss two aspects of liberty by examining the distinction between act and omission in criminal jurisprudence. Criminal law makes a significant distinction between harmful actions and harmful omissions and, consequently, between killing and letting die. Any act that causes death is grounds for a homicide conviction -- subject, of course, to the existence of the other elements necessary for establishing criminal liability, such as causation and mens rea. However, liability for death by omission is subject to the additional identification of a duty to act. In other words, the defendant will be liable only if we can identify such a duty and show that the breach of this duty resulted in the victim's death. This distinction between act and omission is rooted in an ethical perspective, in which we instinctively see a difference between actively behaving in a manner that causes harm and passively failing to prevent such harm. Nevertheless, since the beginning of the 1960s, there has been a significant movement to attack and criticize this moral distinction. This critique impacts upon the legal sphere as well, since if the moral distinction between act and omission is not obvious, the

Language: en