Year and a Day Rule

The year and a day rule was an English legal principle holding that a death could not be deemed murder—or any other form of homicide—if it occurred more than a year and one day after the act that was allegedly its cause. Though it became enshrined in common law, the rule was finally abolished in 1996. Now, if an act can be proved to have caused a death, it can constitute murder regardless of how much time has passed. In what other ways has the specific time limit of a year and a day been used? More...

It took me a little while to really understand this law also, but this is my understanding: It is not a statute of limitations on trying someone for murder, it is a statute of limitations on determining an act as a cause of death. So, let's say someone spikes my drink with poison, but I survive the episode, albeit with significant kidney damage. A year and two days later I drop dead. The coroner determines that the kidney damage was to blame for my death, and the damage was in turn caused by my consuming that poisoned drink a year and two days earlier. The bastard who poisoned me gets off scot-free (first time I've ever written that word or even seen it in writing, had to look that one up in the dictionary to make sure I got it right). Where this becomes relevant on a regular basis is in life support cases. For example, if a person is hit by a drunk driver and ends up brain dead but on life support for 3 years before ceasing to have a heartbeat, the drunk driver would apparently not be on the hook for murder.

On the contrary, the year and a day rule seems arbitrary and poorly thought out. If it can be established that an action caused someone's death, it should not matter how much time has passed between action A and result B. Glad it was finally abolished.

A valid point, but I'm still surprised that it took until 1996 to finally abolish the law. It seems completely archaic in this age.