NEW CLAUSE.—(Murder first degree.) (Hansard, 14 April 1948)

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

This Clause speaks for itself. Its object is to divide the crime of murder into two degrees, to bring it more into consonance with the actualities of life. It is not affected by the decision to suspend the death penalty for murder, which has just been passed. I think it will ensure that major crimes will meet with major punishment, and that minor crimes will meet with minor punishment. I am addressing myself, Kr. Speaker, with your permission, to the two new Clauses in my name—the second one being:

(1) Every person who causes the death of another shall be guilty of murder in the second degree if the act by which the death is caused—

(a) is done with the intention of causing death; or
(b) is done with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death; or
(c) is done with the knowledge that he is likely by such act to cause death.

(2) Every person convicted of murder in the second degree shall be liable to imprisonment for any term not exceeding twenty years and 1103 to such fine (if any) as the court shall determine.

The idea of these two new Clauses is not a novel one. It is the law in parts of the United States of America, where in some States there are four degrees of murder, and in others, five degrees. My suggestion is that the crime of murder here should be divided into two degrees. We find murder divided into different degrees also in some European countries, such as Austria, where it is divided into four degrees, and in India, under the Indian Penal Code—probably the best penal code the world ever saw. That code was drafted many years ago by the Indian Penal Commission, under the chairmanship of Mr. Macaulay, afterwards Lord Macaulay. It has worked well in those countries, and in my submission it will tend to prevent injustices, to protect the public, and to make the punishment fit the crime. I think it speaks for itself, and I do not propose to address the House at any great length upon it.

At present we have, in British law, different kinds of penalties for different kinds of killing. First, we have manslaughter, which is the unlawful and felonious killing without any malice express or implied. Examples of such killings would be: culpable neglect, for instance, to feed or protect a child, or to strike another person, in a sudden quarrel, or to strike a blow on provocation. Then we have the crime of murder, the one-degree crime of murder, which is where a person of sound memory and discretion unlawfully kills another with malice aforethought, either express or implied.

The object of these new Clauses is to divide the existing crime of murder into first degree and the second degree. I think the House will agree that there are different degrees of turpitude in murder. There is the kind of murder which is committed with premeditation and deliberation—such, for instance, as those committed by Burke and Hare who murdered in order to provide surgeons with bodies for dissection; George Joseph Smith who married a wife, insured her life, then murdered her by drowning in a bath, collected the insurance money and promptly married another woman, went through the same 1104 procedure, and then married a third woman with the same result. In that case there was premeditation and deliberation. That type of murder, along with the poisoning type, as in the case of Armstrong and Seddon, is easily distinguishable from the kind of murder which is of less turpitude—such, for instance, as the case of the returned soldier who finds his wife unfaithful and murders her lover. That, though murder and cannot be condoned, is easily distinguishable in its degree of turpitude from the other class to which I have referred.

The object of these new Clauses give legislation sanction for the division of those murders into the two classes—one which is committed with the premeditated and deliberate intention of causing death, and the other type which is perpetrated without premeditation or deliberation. Lest it might be thought that there would be difficulty in distinguishing between the two types, I may say that there is authority for the proposition that the words "premeditated" and "deliberate" have been judicially defined in the countries where murder is so divided, and there should be no difficulty on that score. In fact, in this country at present the Home Secretary divides murder into two classes by reprieving some murderers and not reprieving others. I do not think there is any difficulty in distinguishing between premeditation and deliberation on the one hand, and mere intention without premeditation and deliberation on the other.