Clayton v The Queen

Criminal Law – Criminal liability - Complicity - Extended common purpose - Applicants carried out a common plan to assault victim, who died - Applicants tried together on counts alleging murder and assault - Prosecution could not identify which applicant inflicted fatal wound on victim - Bases on which murder left to jury included extended common purpose - Whether murder on the basis of extended common purpose should have been left to the jury - Whether extended common purpose a proper basis for conviction of murder.

Criminal Law – Criminal liability - Complicity - Re-consideration of extended common purpose - Whether maintenance of extended common purpose as common law doctrine justified - Whether there is disconformity between legal and moral responsibility where conviction for murder is based on doctrine of extended common purpose - Whether extended common purpose imposes criminal liability without requiring proof of actual intent - Availability of verdict of manslaughter where murder by extended common purpose left to jury - Whether doctrine of extended common purpose adds undue complexity to trials - Necessity for trial judge to identify, and leave to jury, only the "real issues" of fact - Role of courts in altering law of homicide - Whether doctrine of extended common purpose should be re-expressed so as to replace "foresight of possibility" with "foresight of probability", or "want", or "virtual certainty" that the incidental crime would be committed.

Words and phrases – "extended common purpose".

Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) – s 568(1).