It might appear obvious that everyone knows exactly what murder is but Kate Morgan’s book Murder : A Biography will soon show the reader that this is not the case. This book is about what the law in England and Wales calls murder and how that definition has been developed and changed over the years and it illustrates its points by descriptions of legally significant murder cases.
The author includes cases which helped our laws to distinguish between murder and manslaughter and also to define self-defence. By looking at the case of a cabin boy eaten by his companions when they were stranded without food it looks at when necessity can be a defence and when that fails. It looks at what the law has said over the years about diminished responsibility in murderers and the problems that arise from various cases where this is a factor. The book also looks at medical malpractice and whether corporate entities can be convicted of murder.
This is a fascinating book that uses case studies to show the moral dilemmas that have faced courts and policy makers through the past few centuries and how they have been resolved. It also shows us where the law still has issues which cause problems and how different classes and groups of people have been treated differently by our courts.
The case studies are well used and obviously very interesting because even if you know something about the events described the emphasis is on how these cases changed the law, and often public attitudes, towards murder, manslaughter and the punishment of the offender. I thought that the author was very clear about what has happened over the past three centuries or so and that the book as a whole showed me how law is changed and developed by individual cases. The author has a slightly humorous style on occasion which makes the book easy and enjoyable to read but I never felt that she disrespected the victims of the crimes she describes.
Anne Is Reading 