Mens rea - Mens rea lecture notes PDF

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Mens rea lecture notes...

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Mens rea. “Malice aforethought, express or implied.” • This is the mens rea as defined by Lord coke.... • The mens rea of an unlawful killing is: • an intention to kill or • intention to cause grievous bodily harm. • If either of these are satisfied then D. Can be liable to have the mens rea of murder. • • • •

Intention; Two types of; Intention: 1. Direct intention 2. Oblique intention (Indirect intention.)

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A criminal offence requires that the accused has some form of blameworthy state of mind to make him culpable for his actions. Mens rea should be considered in three forms: • Intention • Recklessness • Strict liability

• Mens rea- specific intention or direct intention • Some offences require a specific intention to cause the result or a result close to one that occurs. • For example, murder requires the accused expressly intended to kill or inflict really serious harm. • Vickers (1957); {D. Intended GBH.} • Think of specific intention as the accused’s aim or purpose. • Remember, specific intention is very difficult to prove!

• Mens rea- oblique intention • The consequence isn't your aim, but is “virtually certain to occur” as a result of your actions. • The main difficulty here, is the D’s main aim is not to kill or cause serious injury, but to achieve quite different end. • Case law has tried to clarify “foresight”. • Case law; for oblique intention. • Maloney (1985): {Drunken game} • Hancock and Shankland (1986): {miners strike} • Nedrick (1989): {trying to frighten woman so set fire to letter box.} • Woollin (1998): {threw baby against wall}

• Matthews and Alleyne (2003): Threw victim in river, they knew he couldn’t swim}

• Present law; • A person commits murder when he kills another with the necessary intent. • Intention for murder is nothing less than; 1. The intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm (Direct intention) • Or 2. The D’s foresight of the consequence of his actions is no more than evidence from which the jury may infer intent. (Oblique intention), but this is not that straight forward.

• Section 8 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 states the jury; “shall not be bound in law to infer that D intended or foresaw a result of his actions by reason only of it’s being a natural and probable consequence of those actions. ” • so the jury are not obliged to say there was intention just because something is likely to happen. They have to look at everything else involved in the case before they can infer such an intention....