Introduction
Drug overdose fatalities have increased for the third year in a row across Europe. In the United Kingdom, 2,65 such deaths were reported in 2015, constituting 31% of the total in Europe. Specifically, heroin or morphine was implicated in 1,200 deaths in Wales and England in 2015. This data represents a 26% increase from 2014 and a 57% increase from 2013. While the rise in the number of such deaths is astounding, it begs the question of who should be liable for death from drug overdose among the people in the supply chain. In this light, this paper assesses the criminal liability of June for the death of Donna due to an overdose of heroin that the former had bought and shared with her.
The Case
Donna and June are drug addicts. June has a diamond ring belonging to her mother. Her mother, Andrea, had given her the ring two weeks previously for ‘safekeeping’ while she was on holiday. June sells the ring for 2000 pounds. Using the money from the sale, she visits her regular drug dealer, Harry. Harry invites her into his flat, and she pays him cash for heroin. Before she leaves, however, Harry becomes aggressive and tries to drag her into the bedroom. Terrified, June karate kicks him in the abdomen, winding him and breaking a rib. June flees the scene before he recovers. She goes to Donna’s flat. June prepares a syringe for Donna and helps her tie a tourniquet around her arm. Donna then self-injects. Sometime later, before June has injected herself with heroin, she notices that Donna is unwell and is showing the signs of having overdosed. She leaves Donna alone in the flat, afraid that she will get in trouble for having given Donna the drugs. Donna dies from a drug overdose. Assess the criminal liability of June.
Argument
Several factors lead to death from a drug overdose, starting with the supply of the drug and followed by the individual's voluntary decision to consume it. Law enforcement agencies have struggled to justify who should be liable for death from a drug overdose. If a friend of an addict always must have played a significant role that lleadto an overdose of the addict and inevitable death after the friend leaves for fear of being charged with the death.
Various concerns surround this situation when a drug addict consumes a drug and dies from an overdose. The first concern is whether the drug supplier is liable for the death of the addict. The second concern is whether the act of supplying drugs caused death. Someone who provides drugs to an addict might not be held responsible for the addict's death if they did not assist in the drug's consumption..
In Environment Agency v. Empress Car Company Ltd., the jury ruled that the victim’s voluntary act did not break the chain of causation novus actus intervenes when that action would be a normal occurrence rather than an unusual incident.
Any person who injects another is guilty of administering a noxious thing under the Offence Against the Person Act (OAPA) 1861. According to this law, if June had directly injected Donna with heroin, she may be liable for manslaughter. Similarly, if she had assisted Donna in the injection process, which she did by helping her tie the string around her upper arm, she may be liable for manslaughter. The case of Evans best explains the situation. The case concerns an appeal by X and her mother after X was convicted of manslaughter due to the gross negligence leading to her stepsister’s fatal overdose.. X was an intermediary between the drug supplier and the stepsister, and thus, owes a duty to care and provide help to the victim.
Similarly, in R v. Cato, the judge ruled that injecting another person is a criminal act and that active involvement in causing harm cannot be tolerated as a matter of public policy. The appellant had purchased heroin, and both he and the deceased, Farmer, prepared their doses and took turns injecting each other. Based on section 23 of the OAPA 1861, any person helping another person to overdose on a drug and die is liable for manslaughter. The judges concluded that the appellant had engaged in an unlawful act of administering a noxious substance to another and was therefore liable for manslaughter.
Of note, Lord Widgery, who was judging the case, observed that the appellant was liable to manslaughter by illicit possession of the drug, besides having administered it to the deceased. This raises confusion because mere possession of drugs does not lead to death by overdose. In light of this argument, June possessed the drug but did not inject it into the victim, although she helped tie her arm to help her locate the vein to inject heroin.
The R v. Dalby case established that drug supply or possession isn't a direct cause of death. Dalby gave diconal to someone who later died after injecting it and another substance with a friend's help. Initially prosecuted for manslaughter due to his illegal supply being linked to the death, the conviction was overturned. The court ruled death wasn't directly from the supply but the injection itself. Manslaughter liability requires the possession act to target the victim and risk immediate harm. Applying this, Jane might be liable for Donna's manslaughter as the heroin supply was direct and likely to cause overdose harm. June's tourniquet assistance is legally considered part of the Unlawful Injection Act. Prior rulings suggest helping self-administer drugs, leading to overdose death, constitutes an unlawful act. Thus, June's contribution to Donna's fatal injection could also lead to manslaughter liability.
Conversely, in the subsequent case of R v. Dias, the jury pointed out that it is lawful to self-inject. Thus, the court agreed with the defence attorney that it was illogical to separate the placement of the tourniquet from injecting the drug into one’s system, as the former must always precede the latter. It aims to raise the vein to facilitate the injection of the drug by the deceased or a friend.
In Richards, the conviction was overturned pursuit of the law in Kennedy’s first appeal. The rule was derived from Dias, which regarded self-injection of the drug as unlawful and helping that act constituted an offense of manslaughter in the event of death due to overdose. Based on the case of Rodgers, assisting the victim in the administration of the drug through intravenous injection constitutes an unlawful act amounting to a crime under s.23 of the OAPA 1826 (Ormerod & Fortson 2005). It did not matter whether the deceased had suicidal ideation. However, on appeal, the House affirmed the decision in Dias and argued that it is inappropriate to convict a defendant for manslaughter when he or she supplied a class A drug to an informed and responsible grown-up person who, by his own volition, self-administers the drug.
The House of Lords case R v. Kennedy addressed a similar issue. Marco Bosque asked Kennedy for heroin at their shared hostel. Kennedy prepared a syringe, which Bosque then self-injected, and died from an overdose. The House of Lords ruled that supplying drugs to someone who then voluntarily self-injects and dies doesn't automatically make the supplier liable for manslaughter. Their reasoning highlighted a crucial break in the chain of causation due to the deceased's voluntary and informed act of self-injection. This independent action by Bosque was key to finding Kennedy not guilty of manslaughter.
Such persons should not, therefore, be held responsible for manslaughter or any offence, but rather should be regarded as a victim of their addiction as opposed to murderers. The assertion by Waller LJ in the Dalby case echoes this sentiment. He argued that the main challenge in the case stemmed from the fact that supplying a scheduled drug in itself did not cause direct injury to the deceased. Instead, it
“Made it possible, or even likely, that harm would occur subsequently, particularly if the drug supplied to somebody who was on drugs ... the supply of the drugs would itself have caused no harm unless the deceased had subsequently used the drugs in a form and quantity which was dangerous.”
In the Kennedy case, he was convicted of supplying a Class A drug, violating section 4(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and initially of manslaughter under common law. The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's view that Kennedy unlawfully assisted the deceased in self-injection, even though self-injection isn't a crime ("self-manslaughter" doesn't exist). Under secondary participation rules, liability hinges on the principal committing an offence, which was absent here as the deceased committed no crime. However, the Court of Appeal in Kennedy 2 then argued the self-injection was a joint activity with Kennedy, thus making him liable for manslaughter under section 23 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
The decision of the Court of Appeal was driven by a strong desire to deter those engaged in IV drug use from the practice because of the possibility of being sentenced for manslaughter (Ormerod, 2007). The objective of this policy was to curb the number of deaths from drug overdoses. However, the House of Lords overturned the decision of the lower courts.
Conclusion
The House of the Lord’s decision implies that those engaged in IV drug use will be liable for manslaughter based on s.23 of OAPA 182,6, where one person injects his or her fellow drug user with h Class A drug, such as heroin. In this light, just the part ‘administering a noxious thing to another person’ is the only form of the s.23 applicable to such cases (Khaliq v HM Advocate 1984). Lord Bingham maintained that although there may be a challenge in determining contributory acts that may correspond to the section, in which case facilitation of the injection does not implicate June for the death from overdose, because Donna self-administered the drug. However, June can be convicted based on gross negligence because after realizing that Donna had overdosed chose to flee the scene rather than seek medical help by dialling the emergency service.
References
Professor Ormerod’s commentary to Kennedy [2007] Crim L.R. 223 at 225.
Khaliq v HM Advocate 1984 JC 23 and Ulhaq v HM Advocate 1991 SLT 614
David Ormerod and Rudi Fortson [2005] ‘Drug Suppliers as Manslaughterers (Again)’ Crim L. R. 819 at 827-828. [2007] UKHL 38.
