Lucy Letby: the judge’s direction: Difference between revisions

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 “If you are sure that someone on the unit was deliberately harming a baby or babies you do not have to be sure of the precise harmful act or acts; in some instances there may have been more than one.  To find the defendant guilty, however, you must be sure that she deliberately did some harmful act to the baby the subject of the count on the indictment and the act or acts were accompanied by the intent and, in the case of murder, was causative of death [...].”<ref>{{pl|https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/R-v-Letby-Final-Judgment-20240702.pdf|''R v Letby'' <nowiki>[</nowiki>2024<nowiki>]</nowiki> EWCA Crim 748}}.</ref>}}
-As a principle of law, this is undoubtedly correct, and serves to resolve a probabilistic paradox which might otherwise arise.
+As a principle of law, this is undoubtedly correct. It serves to resolve a probabilistic paradox which might otherwise arise where there is no doubt that the defendant murdered the victim, but it is just not clear precisely how she did it. The jury’s belief in the defendant’s guilt is not derived from the method of murder. The burden of proof is satisfied with other evidence: a reliable confession, of a reasonable inference that no other cause of death was likely.
-Say a defendant is charged with murder. There is unimpeachable evidence that the victim died as a result of violent blunt trauma to the head during a period in which only the defendant had contact with the victim and that took the shape of a heated argument culminating a threat to beat the victim senseless. Immediately afterward, the defendant was caught in possession of a hammer, a club and a lead pipe, all covered in the victim’s viscera. There was no doubt that the defendant murdered the victim but it was not clear with which implement.
+But this scenario — where all other potential causes of death can be ruled out — is unusual. There are two ways it might arise:
-The law is rightly clear this does not matter. The defendant’s guilt does not depend on which of the implements she used to administer the fatal blow. The burden of proof is satisfied: the precise weapon is an extraneous detail.
+Firstly, the victim’s ''manner of dying'' might exclude an innocent explanation: blunt trauma is not consistent with, say, a fatal episode of hypoglycaemia. If the victim’s head has been stoved in, we need not waste time wondering whether he might have suffered a hypoglycaemic episode.
-But this is an unusual case. All other potential causes of death can be ruled out. The victim’s ''manner of dying'' excludes an innocent explanation: blunt trauma is not consistent with an episode of hypoglycemia, so if the victim’s head is caved in, we need not waste time investigating the chance of a contemporaneous hypoglycemic episode.
+Secondly, independent direct evidence might positively implicate the defendant. Here the defendant’s skull is intact, but tests return an unusually high insulin reading. This might be [[consistent with]] undiagnosed hypoglycaemia, but if the defendant was reliably witnessed administering insulin ten minutes before the victim collapsed, we can rule out hypoglycaemia as an operating cause of the collapse.
-Alternatively, independent direct evidence might positively suggest the defendant’s intervention. An unusually high insulin reading might be [[consistent with]] undiagnosed hypoglycemia, but if the defendant was witnessed administering insulin to the victim ten minutes before she collapsed, it becomes a far less probable explanation.
+In the first of these cases we might be sure that it is murder even if we don’t know the precise method; in the second case we can only be sure it is murder because we know the precise method. This is the evidence that excludes non-malicious alternative explanations.
-In Ms Letby’s case, the equivalent scenario would be that ''all reasonably plausible means of death involved Ms. Letby’s malice''. Given the evidence, no explanation not involving the defendant’s malice is l reasonably plausible.
+In Ms Letby’s case, the equivalent scenario would be that ''all reasonably plausible means of death involved Ms. Letby’s malice''. Given the evidence, no explanation not involving the defendant’s malice is reasonably plausible.
 But here the victims’ “manner of collapse” does not imply malice. In every collapse that led to a formal medical examination, the original conclusion — based on the best evidence — was natural causes.