MENS REA - For one to be liable for a crime , there must be both the Actus reus and Mens PDF

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For one to be liable for a crime , there must be both the Actus reus and Mens rea, in the absence of one, one is said no be liable....

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MENS REA Mens rea is a Latin phrase for “guilty mind” basically, the state of mind. For most criminal offences, the prosecution must prove that the defendant had the mental element or “guilty mind” while committing a crime to secure a conviction.The mere commission of a criminal act is not enough to constitute a crime Mens rea allows the criminal justice system to differentiate between someone who did not mean to commit a crime and someone who intentionally set out to commit a crime. The exception lies with strict liability offences whereby intent is imaterial;examples of strict liability offences are 1. Defilement-Intention to have sex with a minor is not a relevant consideration in determining guilt 2. Drink driving-It is immaterial what intent one had at the time he is found to have a blood alcohol concentration beyond the prescribed limit. There are four types of mens rea 1. Direct /purpose intent: A person acts purposefully (intentionally) if he acts with the intent that his action causes a certain result. In other words, the suspect undertakes his action either intending for, or hoping that, a certain result will follow. e.g. Someone aims a gun at another and shoot.Its clear that the purpose of his shooting is to kill. It is immaterial if the person intended to be killed is the one who is actually killed.Once someone shoots with an intent to kill and someone dies (e.g through mistaken identity),the law presumes that there is transferred malice/transferred mens rea. See: R v Latimer(1886) 17 QBD 359. 2. Oblique/foresight/Knowledge intent: A person acts knowingly if he is aware that his conduct will result in certain consequences. In other words, a person acts knowingly if he is aware that it is practically certain that his conduct will cause a specific result. The difference between acting intentionally and acting knowingly is somewhat subtle, but the following example should clear it up a little. EXAMPLE: Fred and his new wife, Betty, decide to go to Hawaii on their honeymoon. Wilma, Fred’s jealous ex-wife finds out what flight they are on and plants a bomb on the plane with the intent of killing Fred and Betty. Wilma knows that there will be ninety-eight other passengers on the flight and, though she feels bad that they will die too, her hatred of Fred and Betty is so strong that she decides to proceed with her plan anyway. Sure enough, the bomb explodes in the middle of the flight, and all one hundred people on board are killed. Wilma has intentionally killed Fred and Betty because she acted with the intent that Fred and Betty would die. However, Wilma only acted knowingly with regard to the killings of the other ninety-eight passengers because, although it was not her intent to kill them, she acted knowing that her actions would result in their deaths. In other words, with respect to Fred

and Betty, Wilma acted with the desire to cause their deaths, but with respect to the other ninety-eight passengers, Wilma acted not with the desire to cause their deaths, but with the knowledge that their deaths would result from her actions. S. 191 of the Penal Code Act which defines Malice aforethought (the mens rea of murder) clearly illustrates intent and knowledge. Malice aforethought shall be deemed to be established by evidence providing either of the following circumstances— (a) an intention to cause the death of any person, whether such person is the person actually killed or not; or (b) knowledge that the act or omission causing death will probably cause the death of some person, whether such person is the person actually killed or not, although such knowledge is accompanied by indifference whether death is caused or not, or by a wish that it may not be caused.

3. Recklessness: A person acts recklessly if he is aware of a substantial risk that a certain result will occur as a result of his actions. The risk must be substantial enough that the action represents a gross deviation from what a reasonable law abiding person would do. The difference between recklessness and knowledge is that where a person acts knowingly he acts with the certainty that a certain result will follow from his actions. However, where a person acts recklessly, the person does not know for sure that a specific result will follow. Rather, he only knows that there is a substantial risk that the result will follow. Read about the objective and subjective tests employed to determine recklessness in common law. R v Caldwell [1982] AC 341 ;R v Lawrence [1982] AC 510 ; R v G and Another [2004] AC (It held that a defendant must be shown to have subjectively appreciated a risk to the health or property of another but carried on in any event before they may be said to be criminally culpable. It abolished the "objective recklessness" test previously established under R v Caldwell.) 4. Negligence: A person acts negligently if they should have been aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a certain consequence would result from their actions. Although the level of risk is the same for both recklessness and negligence, the difference between the two is that with recklessness, the actor must be aware of the risk involved with her actions, whereas, for negligence, the actor is not aware of the risks but should have known what those risks were. In other words, where Wilma sets the bomb off to go at 8:30, knowing that there is a risk that someone might get killed, she has acted recklessly. However, if for some reason, she doesn’t recognize that someone might get killed, she has acted negligently because a reasonable person would be aware that someone could get killed if they were to put a bomb on an airplane.

R v Bateman (1925) 28 Cox's Crim Cas 33 Held: In explaining to juries the test which they should apply to determine whether the negligence, in the particular case, amounted or did not amount to a crime, judges have used many epithets, such as ‘culpable’, ‘criminal’, ‘gross’, ‘wicked’, ‘clear’, ‘complete’. But, whatever epithet be used and whether an epithet be used or not, in order to establish criminal liability, the facts must be such that, in the opinion of the jury, the negligence of the accused went beyond a mere matter of compensation between subjects and showed such disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime against the State and conduct deserving punishment. Concurrence/ Coincidence of the Actus Reus and Mens Rea (Contemporaneity Rule) It is a principle of English law that actus reus and mens rea must coincide. In some cases it can be difficult to tell when intent came into play and as a result it is difficult for the courts to know if they coincided. Courts have therefore adopted a flexible approach and deemed that the mens rea or actus reus don't have to start at the same time; actus reus may be continuous. Thabo Meli v R 1954 1 WLR 228- 4 people had planned to kill a man and make it look like an accident (guilty mind) They took him, beat him over the head, and believing [wrongly] that he was dead, threw him over a cliff. Medical evidence confirmed that the man had died AFTER being thrown down the cliff due to exposure. They appealed their murder conviction by stating that when the mens rea had developed, he had not died (despite the hit over the head), and that when he did die, the intent was not present (they didn't mean for him to die of exposure) therefore the two did not coincide. Thankfully the judge decided that to separate the two was impossible and that one was a direct result from the other and therefore it would be an artificial separation, but the principle can be seen in action, in the context of a murder trial. Fagan v Metropolitan Police [1969] 1 Q.B. 439: This is case where a man who was arguing with the police from inside his car accidentally by reversing the car ran over an officer's foot. Here the actus reus was present, but due to him being unaware of what was happening, he would not in fact be liable as he did not have the guilty mind (mens rea). He had stopped his car on one of the officer’s feet when they alerted him to this, he decided to not move his car - this is when the mens rea developed, because now he knew of the situation, he developed the guilty mind by staying on the officer's foot....