Criminal Law; Seminar 3 questions mens rea PDF

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Criminal Law; seminar questions: Seminar 3: Mens Rea (incl. criminal damage offences)...

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Seminar 3: Mens Rea (incl. criminal damage offences) 1. What are the full legal tests for direct and indirect (oblique) intention in the criminal law? Cite legal authority. 1.

Was the result D’s aim or purpose? If yes – direct intent 2. If no – is there indirect intent? a) Was the result virtually certain? and b) Did D appreciate that this result was virtually certain? If so c) Jury are entitled to find intent Indirect intention – Wollin [1998] 2. Read A. Norrie, ‘After Woollin’ [1999] Criminal Law Review 532. What are Norrie’s observations about the law on indirect (oblique) intention? -

Have more moral elbow room so that the jury can have sympathy? The Woolin test is too broad and should have a narrower approach? Can be over and under inclusive?

3. Mabel is a long-distance lorry driver. She returns home one evening in her large articulated lorry and is about to reverse into the only parking space in the vicinity when Egbert pulls in behind her in his car and takes the space. Mabel and Egbert climb out of their vehicles. Mabel shouts at Egbert to ‘move at once’. He laughs at her and yells back that lorries should not be in residential neighbourhoods and that anyone who drives such a vehicle is a moron. Mabel, angrily, tells him that she will reverse directly onto his car unless he moves it. Egbert makes a rude gesture to Mabel, gets back into his car and shouts that he has ‘absolutely no intention of moving’. Incensed, Mabel climbs back into her lorry and begins to reverse. She does not want to harm Egbert in the process and hopes he will move. He does not and his car is crushed by Mabel’s lorry. Egbert is killed. Does Mabel intend to kill, or cause serious bodily harm to, Egbert (‘intention to kill or cause serious bodily harm’ is the mens rea for murder – see forthcoming homicide lecture handout)? - Was the result intended? o No- Mabel did not intend for V to be seriously injured or killed but wanted to claim the space for herself and tried to use intimidation to do so. - Was the result virtually certain? o Yes- by reversing into his car it is virtually certain that there would be a cause for serious injury. - Did D appreciate that this result was virtually certain? o By reversing she was using the threat of serious injury and so therefore D could foresee a cause for serious injury.

4. What is the full legal test for recklessness in the criminal law? Cite legal authority. -

Subjective test based on Law Commission proposal: o A person acts recklessly within the meaning of section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 with respect to (i) A circumstance when he is aware of a risk that it exists or will exists (ii) A result when he is aware of a risk that it will occur; And it is, in the circumstances known to him, unreasonable to take the risk. Cunningham [1957] 2 QB 396 Accused broke into a house to steal some money within a gas meter, by doing this it caused gas to leak into the adjoining house and endangered the life of the woman living there. Could have turned of the tap but did not. Subjective test: 1) D was aware that there was a risk that his/her conduct would cause a particular result but went on to take it; AND 2) The risk was an unreasonable one for the defendant to take. Brady [2006] EWCA 2413: Fell onto a woman whilst drunk in a night club after standing on a railing. Court of appeal decided: Foresight of a risk is sufficient for a conviction 5. Read C. Crosby, ‘Recklessness – The Continuing Search for a Definition’ (2008) 72 Journal of Criminal Law 313. (a) Why does Crosby consider the search for a definition of recklessness to be ongoing despite the ruling in R v. G & R? (b) Does she propose any alternative recklessness tests? 6. Leo, a 30 year old man with significant learning difficulties, is smoking a cigarette in his friend, Toby’s, garden. He discards the butt of the lit cigarette which ends up landing on a pile of newspapers put out for recycling next to the porch of the house. The newspapers catch fire and the fire quickly spreads to the house. The house and its contents are destroyed, although its occupants – Toby and Claudia – miraculously make it out unharmed. (a) Discuss Leo’s liability, if any, for offences under the Criminal Damage Act 1971, s. 1(1) – 1(3). - Due to Leo’s learning difficulties, it did not make him aware that his conduct

would cause the result. (b) How, if at all, would your answer to (a) differ if Leo had no learning difficulties?

- A reasonable person would have foreseen this to happen....