Bioethics, Medicine and the Criminal Law Medicine, Crime and Society

In recent years, debates have arisen concerning the encroachment of the criminal process in regulating fatal medical error, the implementation of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 and the recent release of the Director of Public Prosecution's assisted suicide policy. Consequently, questions have been raised regarding the extent to which such intervention helps, or if it in fact hinders, the sustained development of medical practice. In this collection, Danielle Griffiths and Andrew Sanders explore the operation of the criminal process in healthcare in the UK as well as in other jurisdictions, including the USA, Australia, New Zealand, France and the Netherlands. Using evidence from previous cases alongside empirical data, each essay engages the reader with the debate surrounding what the appropriate role of the criminal process in healthcare should be and aims to clarify and shape policy and legislation in this under-researched area.

1. The 'doctoring type'; 2. 'The sleep of death': 150 years of anaesthesia-related mortality and the courts; 3. Victims and prosecution policy; 4. The road to the dock: prosecution decision-making in medical manslaughter cases; 5. Medical manslaughter: the role of context and character; 6. Doctors who kill and harm their patients: the Australian experience; 7. Medical manslaughter: organisational liability; 8. 'From prosecution to rehabilitation': New Zealand's response to health professional negligence; 9. The role of the criminal law in healthcare in France: examining the HIV blood contamination scandal; 10. Pain relief, prescription drugs, and prosecution in the US; 11. Exploring the tension between physician-assisted dying and palliative medicine; 12. Psychiatric care and criminal prosecution; 13. 'Involuntary automaticity' and medical manslaughter; 14. Maternity services and the impact of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007; 15. Disease transmission and prosecution.

This collection of essays presents a fresh analysis of the increasing intervention of criminal law into medical practice, using evidence from previous cases alongside empirical data from a number of jurisdictions. It will be of interest to, among others, academics, healthcare practitioners and criminal lawyers.

Danielle Griffiths is a research fellow at the University of Manchester.
Andrew Sanders is Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Birmingham.