When it comes to assessing the series of criminal liabilities of the accused in this scenario, various issues will be considered; the aggravating factors or issues that provoked the current state or nature of the wellbeing of the murder suspect, the mental state of Jessica that led to both depression and anxiety, and the types of charges she will be facing in court as a result of her actions. The above-named aspects will not only help us understand the true depth of the scenario but also develop the nature of the verdict that is most likely to be upheld when sentencing the defendant as per the rule of law.
To begin with, the first and main forms of criminal charges that face the accused include assault and homicide. In both cases that led to the death of Olivia and Amy, Jessica will be considered to have committed at least manslaughter for strangling and shoving down the down-the-stairs the victims respectively. This case can be considered to attract murder charges because according to the felony-murder rule, a scenario is considered to be a murder once the factors of fault and culpability are brought in place.2 For this particular case, the defendant is faced with committing a felony or assault to both victims with intent whereby, in both cases, Jessica reacted with violence in response to one of her friends arguing with her and the other one raising an alarm over the first kill she had committed. In the United Kingdom, unlike in the US, there are no degrees of murder since they have only one definition for this particular crime and the sentences depend on whether the perpetrator is below 18, between 18-21 years or above 21. In our case, Jessica seems to be either between 18-21 or above those years and so there is the need to assess the intent behind her actions. The importance of the examination is that it is what determines the level of mental culpability of the accused and also proves if they had requisite mens rea.
Based on this situation, it can also be noticed that there are possibilities of transferred intent within the case. The reason behind this is that as indicated, the main reason why Amy died was because she had started to question and press Jessica to tell her where Olivia had gone since she did not believe the explanation that her friend had left whereas she had seen all her belongings were still in the house. This then led to Jessica killing her as a way of silencing her. Therefore, transferred intent as many law books describe it, is when a person falls victim to malice which was not intended for them. Ideally, in case Amy had decided to believe Olivia and leave the house to go and look for her friend outside, there are higher chance that she would have survived or avoided being murdered. However, this point can be argued in the sense that even though at first the accused did not kill her immediately after she came from the shop, shoving her downstairs can demonstrate intent to hurt the victim or cause physical injury that would help silence her or prevent her from raising an alarm.
Also, this case can be viewed based on the Palsgraf doctrine in the sense that the accused pushed the victim Amy on the staircases and as a proximate cause, the action led to her death. This doctrine applies in this case because, based on the ruling from Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. case, it has ever since been considered that when making a ruling around a felony or murder, the character of the accused’s actions, whether done with precision or negligence, must be assessed about the body state of the person.2 This means that for the case of Jessica, a deep assessment should be done on both her mental and physical state when she was committing the action to determine if the proximate cause was intentional and pre-meditated before she can be pronounced guilty of the situation.
Apart from committing assault and murder upon the victims, the main suspect is also considered to have committed crimes of concealing both the bodies of Olivia and Amy in her garden shed. These crime charges can also be associated with tampering with evidence or impediment to justice. This situation, as much as it is complex in itself, might require that the accused is protected by laws of double jeopardy which often prevent the defendant from being brought to trial twice for the same mistake. However, there are possibilities of multiple charges for the same mistake whereby Jessica, could be charged with assaulting Amy, killing and concealing her body as three separate charges and the same goes for Olivia. Therefore, as much as concealment of the victim’s bodies is considered a criminal offence in itself, the lawyers of the defendant might use the rule of double jeopardy to try and reduce the sentencing of the accused but there are high chance that their plea will not be considered by the court. The accused is also found guilty of deception and presentation of falsified information to Amy regarding the whereabouts of Olivia. In this scenario, she first begins by lying that her friend had left the house as a way of trying to cover her crimes so that they would not be discovered. This detail will be used against her in court and might even aggravate the verdict.
One aspect of the situation of the accused in this scenario is that there are high chances of receiving cumulative charges in her hearing. That is, the accused might be required to face multiple convictions which do not co-affect each other. Considering that in both murders, clear intent can be derived from the actions of the perpetrator and that the notion of pre-meditation can be assessed in the confrontation between Amy and Jessica, murder sentencing might be rendered just in court. If the court takes this route, the accused might be required to serve concurrent terms for each of the murders and assaults she committed for both victims. For example, if she has to be sentenced to 70 years in jail without parole for one of the murders, this means that she will serve 140 years in both cases. The lawyers for the defendant might file for double jeopardy to prevent this from happening. Additionally, since the murder was committed in the UK, the offender will likely face a mandatory sentence of life on the license since it is the only form of conviction that is allowed for such crimes in both Wales and England.1
When it comes to assessing the aggravating factors and the mental state of the accused, it is clear that Jessica’s situation came as a result of a domino effect that had started with her job coming to an end following the company’s tough financial situation. As proved by her assessment, under such situations, most companies will often lay out underperforming employees. In this scenario, the accused was one of them hence the firing she received from the management of her former workplace. Therefore, the company’s management did not make any mistake. However, for Jessica, the kind of mental challenges she faced with her job coming to an end is what led to her diagnosis of anxiety and depression. In consideration of victims with mental issues, in most cases, their perception towards their financial challenges is what drives them into doing unhealthy practices like isolating themselves. As indicated in the scenario, when her two friends visit her, they find that she has almost no food, a clear indication that her job loss has led to her struggle to access necessities such as daily meals.
In addition to this, it is evident that the mental state of the suspect was even more affected by the contents of conspiracy theories that she was actively consuming from watching YouTube Videos while alone at home since these were the leading causes of argument between the accused and the first murder victim. Also, the lack of contact with other people seemed to have had an impact on her because she was not getting any other views or perspectives towards her situation other than her own. In many cases, it becomes easier for one to be misguided by their mind because the mental pressures from the normal challenges in life might lead to a change in attitude towards everything whereby one might end up thinking more evil of themselves or others to an exaggerated extent. As much as these issues might be valid before the court, mental assessment of the responses and medical tests of the accused often determine the type of verdict they will receive. This means that specialists in psychology will be used in the interrogation process and also conducting medical lab tests that will be used in correlation to her arguments and the available evidence to showcase if the cases will be classified as either murder or manslaughter.
In summary, as indicated from the whole analysis, Jessica’s situation is complex in different ways. However, some of the main things that stand out from the situation are that the character of the actions of the accused indicates that she has no regard for human life and that she sought to use violence and lies to evade her consequences. Even though her mental state might affect the verdict that will be set by the court, the evidence and flow of events in the whole case will have more strength in the sentencing that she will receive. This is brought about by the fact her actions in both assaults and murder indicate culpability and elements of fault.
References
Horack Jr, Frank E. “The Multiple Consequences of a Single Criminal Act.” Minn. L. Rev. 21 (1936): 805.
Majola, Bongani C. “13 Cumulative Charges under International Criminal Law: Issues and Perspectives.” In Promoting Accountability under International Law for Gross Human Rights Violations in Africa, pp. 201-221. Brill Nijhoff, 2015.
Ritz, Wilfred J. “Felony Murder, Transferred Intent, and the Palsgraf Doctrine in the Criminal Law.” Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 16 (1959): 169.
Simon, Jonathan. “How should we punish murder.” Marq. L. Rev. 94 (2010): 1241.
Tomkovicz, James J. “The endurance of the felony-murder rule: A study of the forces that shape our criminal law.” Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 51 (1994): 1429.
Tongue, Megan Elizabeth. “Does the Punishment Fit the Crime: A Comparative Note on Sentencing Laws for Murder in England and Wales vs. the United States of America.” Mo. L. Rev. 80 (2015): 1257.
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