CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1920, Page 4

CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE.

The remarks recently made by Mr. Justice Stringer at Hamilton', relative to the wide meaning attached to the crime of manslaughter, direct attention to the reason why in so many casea before the Supreme Court a failure of justice takes place. It is remarkable that, in view of the difficulty experienced in obtaining convictions on a charge of manslaughter, the necessary amendment of the criminal code lias not been made long since, but there exists a strong disinclination to depart from the beaten track of criminal law and to adjust the hoary usages of the past to the exigencies of the present. Justice Stringer was perfectly right when he said that in the minds of the people the charge of manslaughter is generally regarded as a mitigated form of murder. The latter may be defined as the act of killing a human being with premeditated malice—not necessarily causing instant death, but resulting in the victim dying within a year and a day. The' United States law recognises degrees in murder, while in France, and some other civilised countries, extenuating circumstances are taken into.consideration, and occasionally what is termed the "unwritten law" is regarded as justification. Manslaughter (or homicide) is the killing of one man by another, and, in law, is of three kindsjustifiable, excusable and felonious. So far as the remarks of Mr. Justice Stringer apply it is only necessary to consider excusable manslaughter, when it happens from misadventure. He considers that in cases of death caused by the neglect of another person, called "criminal neglect," juries would not have the same reluctance to convict if they understood clearly the difference in the wide range of offences termed manslaughter, and he put forward a suggestion that the law should be altered so as to designate certain cases of manslaughter as "criminal negligence." In Scots law, manslaughter is defined as "culpable homicide," and it would seem that such r a term might well be applied to such cases as those where death is caused by persons driving motors without a full sense of responsibility and thereby causing loss of life. Now that attention has been calledto this defect in the present criminal code by a Judge of the Supreme Court, it should be followed by legislative action. The perils of the highways due to criminal carelessness will only be alleviated by the due punishment of all offenders.