Grievous Bodily Harm Ending in Death

by the means mentioned therein is simply grievous without producing the more serious effects described in Section 232 If these more serious effects in fact ensue, then the punishments prescribed by Section 232 apply irrespective of the means whereby the harm has been caused.

Grievous Bodily Harm Ending in Death A person guilty of grievous "bodily harm from which death ensues solely as a result of the nature or the natural consequences of the harm and not of any supervening accidental cause is punished:

(a) With hard labour from six to twenty years if death ensues within forty days from the midnight immediately preceding the crime

(b) With hard labour or imprisonment from four to twelve years if death ensues after the said forty days but within one year reckoned as above.

The punishment is hard labour or imprisonment from three to nine years if death ensues as a result of a supervening accidental cause and not solely as a result of the nature or the natural consequences of the harm.

This is a form of homicide “praeter intentionem” . If the intention of the doer, wrongfully causing a bodily harm, was that of killing and death ensues, he is guilty of wilful homicide and not of this special crime. So also if his intention was to put the life of the victim in manifest danger. Death being easily foreseeable as a probable consequence of the act, the grave result which ensues is treated by the law as if it were intentional.

But where the intention of the offender was merely to cause a bodily harm, even though serious, but not such as to expose the victim to manifest danger of life, and death ensues, then this result goes beyond this intention and the law cannot justly punish the act as one of wilful homicide. The death, which was neither desired nor actually foreseen nor patently foreseeable as a likely consequence of the act, cannot fairly be charged against the offender as wilful. But in so far as his intention was directed to the wrongful injury of another, he must, though to a lesser extent than if he had intended, directly or indirectly, to kill 1 answer for the death which his act has in fact caused. And for this it is not necessary to enquire whether the death was more or less foreseeable. The following dictum said with reference to the Italian Code of 1889, applies to our law:

“Il Codice Italiano [...] non pone il fondamento della diminuente dell'eceesso del fine, nella piu o meno facile prevedebilità da parte dell'agente, delle conseguenze, che col fatto proprio poteva produrre, bensì nella intenzione di lui, nell'atto di ledere l'altrui integrità personale, di voler produrre lesione di entità minore a quella che effettivamente abbia prodotto” .

Indeed, if the death was obviously foreseeable from the fact that the intention of the agent was to cause a bodily harm of such a grievous nature as to expose the life of the victim to manifest jeopardy then, if death ensues, the agent is guilty of wilful homicide.

So that, therefore, this form of criminality may arise, it is essential that the intention of the agent was not that of killing or of exposing the life of another person to manifest danger, but only that of causing a bodily harm, whatever the degree, but not such as makes the contemplation of death manifest. If there was not even such an intention, in fact no intention at all to cause a hurt or injury, then if death ensues, it can either be purely accidental or, if due to negligence, involuntary, or, if ensuing from the commission of another crime, e.g., the crimes under sections 326, 330, 331, and 335 of the Criminal Code, imputable under those provisions.

That is so far as regards the mental element.

The material element consists in any grievous bodily harm of those already described, from which death ensues. But for the purpose of punishment, the law distinguishes between the case in which death follows solely as a result of the nature or the natural consequences of the injury and the case in which supervening accidental causes have contributed to bring about the fatal result. And in respect of the former case, the law further distinguishes "between the case in which death happens within forty days and the case in which death occurs later than forty days hut within a year.

We have already seen in dealing with the crime of wilful homicide that the law does not fix any time within which death must happen. In view of the sound criticism of Mr. Jameson of a provision fixing such a time in the original project413, that provision was omitted when our Code was enacted. But where the intention of the agent was merely that of causing a “bodily harm, the law thought it proper to prescribe a time “beyond

413 P. 114 and Note “C” of his report