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In English criminal law, intention is one of the types of mens rea (Latin for "guilty mind") that, when accompanied by an actus reus (Latin for "guilty act") constitutes a crime. Image File history File links SmallLadyJustice. ...
English law is the law of England and Wales, rather than Scotland and Northern Ireland. ...
This article concerns the common-law legal system, as contrasted with the civil law legal system; for other meanings of the term, within the field of law, see common law (disambiguation). ...
In many common law jurisdictions (e. ...
A hybrid offence or dual offence are the special offences in Canadian criminal law where the prosecution may choose whether to proceed with a summary offence or an indictment. ...
Regulatory offences are a class of crime in which the standard for proving culpability has been lowered so as not to require any fault elements. ...
A lesser included offense, in criminal law, is a crime for which all of the elements necessary to impose liability are also elements found in a more serious crime. ...
Actus reus is the action (or inaction, in the case of criminal negligence and similar crimes which are sometimes called acts of omission) which, in combination with the mens rea (guilty mind), produces criminal liability in common law based criminal law jurisdictions such as the United States, United Kingdom. ...
In law, causation is the name given to the process of testing whether defendants should be fixed with liability for the outcome to their acts and omissions that injure or cause loss to others. ...
The mens rea is the Latin term for guilty mind used in the criminal law. ...
In the criminal law, intention is one of the three general classes of mens rea necessary to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability crime. ...
In the criminal law, recklessness (sometimes also termed wilful blindness) is one of the three possible classes of mental state constituting mens rea (the Latin for guilty mind). To commit an offence of ordinary as opposed to strict liability, the prosecution must be able to prove both an actus reus...
Criminal negligence, in the realm of criminal common law, is a legal term of art for a state of mind which is careless, inattentive, neglectful, willfully blind, or reckless; it is the mens rea part of a crime which, if occurring simultaneously with the actus reus, gives rise to criminal...
In the criminal law, corporate liability is an aspect of criminal vicarious liability and determines the extent to which a corporation as a fictitious person can be convicted of offences committed by the natural persons it employs. ...
The legal principle of vicarious liability applies to hold one person liable for the actions of another when engaged in some form of joint or collective activity. ...
In the criminal law, an omission or failure to act will only constitute an actus reus (Latin for guilty act) and give rise to liability when the law imposes a duty to act and the defendant is in breach of that duty. ...
Concurrence or Simultaneity is a legal term, from Western jurisprudence, referring to the simultaneous occurrence of actus reus (bad action) and mens rea (bad mind), which must be present for a crime to have occurred; except in crimes of strict liability. ...
Ignorantia juris non excusat or Ignorantia legis neminem excusat (Latin for ignorance of the law is no excuse) is a legal doctrine holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape punishment for violating the law merely because they were unaware of the law; that is...
An inchoate offense is a crime. ...
Solicitation is a crime; it is an inchoate offense that consists of a person inciting, counseling, advising, urging, or commanding another to commit a crime with the specific intent that the person solicited commit the crime. ...
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more natural persons to break the law at some time in the future, so a natural person identified with the mind of a legal entity cannot conspire with the company alone. ...
An accessory is a person who assists in or conceals a crime, but does not actually participate in the commission of the crime. ...
The crime of attempt occurs when a person does an act amounting to more than mere preparation for a criminal offense, with specific intent to commit a crime, if that act tends but fails to effect the commission of the offense intended. ...
In criminal law, a common assault is a crime when the defendant either puts another in fear of injury or actually commits a battery. ...
In many common law jurisdictions, the crime of battery involves an injury or other contact upon the person of another in a manner likely to cause bodily harm. ...
Assault Causing Actual Bodily Harm (ABH) Assault causing actual bodily harm (ABH) is an offence under Section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1847. ...
Grievous bodily harm or GBH is a type of assault resulting in, for example, broken bones or cuts to the skin. ...
This page is a candidate to be copied to Wikisource. ...
Corporate manslaughter is a term in English law for an act of homicide committed by a company. ...
Harassment refers to a wide spectrum of offensive behavior. ...
Under English law, the Criminal Damage Act 1971 is the main statute covering damage to property. ...
The Theft Act 1968 (1968 c. ...
Everyday instance of theft: the bike which fits on this wheel has disappeared Theft (also known as stealing) is in general, the wrongful taking of someone elses property without that persons willful consent. ...
Dishonesty is a term which in common usage may be defined as the act of being dishonest; to act without honesty; a lack of probity, to cheat, lying or being deliberately deceptive; lacking in integrity; to be knavish, perfidious, corrupt or treacherous; charlatanism or quackery. ...
TWOC is an acronym standing for Taken Without Owners Consent. ...
For the purposes of English law, deception is defined in s15(4) Theft Act 1968 and applies to the deception offences in the Theft Act 1968, and to the Theft Act 1978 and the Theft (Amendment) Act 1996. ...
In English law, the main deception offences are defined in the Theft Act 1968 (TA68), the Theft Act 1978 and the Theft (Amendment) Act 1996. ...
Blackmail is the crime of threatening to reveal substantially true information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a monetary demand is met. ...
A cars handling is a description of the way the car performs, particularly during cornering. ...
The Theft Act 1978 supplemented to earlier Theft Act 1968. ...
Forgery is the process of making or adapting objects or documents (see false document), with the intention to deceive. ...
Computer Crime, E-Crime, Hi-Tech Crime or Electronic Crime is a crime in which a computer plays an essential part. ...
Bribery is a crime defined by Blacks Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions as an official or other person in discharge of a public or legal duty. ...
Perjury is lying or making verifiably false statements under oath in a court of law. ...
Obstruction of justice, in a common law state, refers to the crime of offering interference of any sort to the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other (usually government) officials. ...
Criminal procedure refers to the legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated the criminal law. ...
A contract is any promise or set of promises made by one party to another for the breach of which the law provides a remedy. ...
In the common law, a tort is a civil wrong for which the law provides a remedy. ...
Property law is the law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land as distinct from personal or movable possessions) and in personal property, within the common law legal system. ...
In the law, a will or testament is a document by which a person (the testator) regulates the rights of others over his property or family after death. ...
The law of trusts and estates is generally considered the body of law which governs the management of personal affairs and the disposition of property of an individual in anticipation and the event of such persons incapacity or death, also known as the law of successions in civil law. ...
The law of evidence governs the use of testimony (eg. ...
English law is the law of England and Wales, rather than Scotland and Northern Ireland. ...
Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of law that punishes criminals for committing offences against the state. ...
The mens rea is the Latin term for guilty mind used in the criminal law. ...
Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...
Actus reus is the action (or inaction, in the case of criminal negligence and similar crimes which are sometimes called acts of omission) which, in combination with the mens rea (guilty mind), produces criminal liability in common law based criminal law jurisdictions such as the United States, United Kingdom. ...
The standard definitions
Intention is generally defined in terms of foresight of particular consequences and a desire to act or fail to act so that those consequences occur. It is distinguished from recklessness because, on a subjective basis, there is foresight but no desire to produce the consequences. But the perennial problem has always been the extent to which the court can impute sufficient desire to convert recklessness into intention. The original rule was objective. In DPP v Smith (1961) AC 290, the test was that a person was taken to foresee and intend the natural and probable consequences of his or her acts. In the criminal law, an omission or failure to act will only constitute an actus reus (Latin for guilty act) and give rise to liability when the law imposes a duty to act and the defendant is in breach of that duty. ...
In the criminal law, recklessness (sometimes also termed wilful blindness) is one of the three possible classes of mental state constituting mens rea (the Latin for guilty mind). To commit an offence of ordinary as opposed to strict liability, the prosecution must be able to prove both an actus reus...
A court is an official, public forum which a sovereign establishes by lawful authority to adjudicate disputes, and to dispense civil, labour, administrative and criminal justice under the law. ...
The principle of imputation reflects the general public policy underpinning the operation of the law which is that ignorantia juris non excusat, the Latin for ignorance of the law is no excuse. ...
Given that s8 Criminal Justice Act 1967 now entitles a jury to draw reasonable inferences from all the evidence, Wien J. said in R v Belfon (1976) 3 All ER 46 that: This article may be confusing for some readers, and should be edited to enhance clarity. ...
- Foresight and recklessness are evidence from which intent may be inferred but they cannot be equated...with intent.
Thus, when as in R v Moloney (1985) 1 All ER 1025 the defendant makes a direct attack on a victim and the purpose is to kill or seriously injure the victim, reference to foresight as such is not required. Lord Bridge held there was no rule that foresight of probable consequences was equivalent to, or alternative to, the necessary intention for a crime of specific intent. Rather, the question of foresight of consequences was a part of the law of evidence. Lord Bridge gives the example of a man boarding a plane which he knows to be bound for Manchester. He "conclusively demonstrates" his intention to go there. It is not merely evidence from which such intention may be inferred. In the rare case where it may be necessary to direct a jury by reference to foresight of consequences, two questions arise: - (a) was death or very serious injury a natural consequence of the defendant's voluntary act?
- (b) did the defendant foresee that consequence as being a natural consequence of his act?
If the answer to both questions was in the affirmative, an inference could be drawn that the defendant had intended that consequence. What was a "natural" consequence? - ...in the ordinary course of events a certain act will lead to a certain consequence unless something unexpected supervenes to prevent it... [and] the probability of the consequence taken to have been foreseen must be little short of overwhelming before it will suffice to establish the necessary intent.
The issue then focused on the probability that the particular harm will result from what is done. In R v Hancock & Shankland (1986) 1 ALL ER 641 Lord Scarman puts it: - ..the greater the probability of a consequence the more likely it is that the consequence was foreseen and if that consequence was foreseen, the greater the probability is that it was also intended.
In R v Nedrick (1986) 83 Cr. App. R. 267 the Court of Appeal through Lord Lane summarised the law as follows: Court of Appeals is the title of certain appellate courts in various jurisdictions. ...
- ...if the jury are satisfied that at the material time the defendant recognised that death or serious harm would be virtually certain (barring some unforeseen intervention) to result from his voluntary act, then that is a fact from which they may find it easy to infer that he intended to kill or do serious bodily harm, even though he may not have had any desire to achieve that result...Where the charge is murder and in the rare cases where the simple direction is not enough, the jury should be directed that they are not entitled to infer the necessary intention unless they feel sure that death or serious bodily harm was a virtual certainty (barring some unforeseen intervention) as a result of the defendant's actions and that the defendant appreciated that such was the case.
After Lord Steyn's judgment in R v Woollin (1998) 4 All ER 103 (HL) it is clear that, based on R v Moloney, foresight of death or grievous bodily harm as a mere probability is insufficient. This confirms R v Nedrick subject to the substitution of "find" for "infer". Grievous bodily harm or GBH is a type of assault resulting in, for example, broken bones or cuts to the skin. ...
- Where the charge is murder and in the rare cases where the simple direction is not enough, the jury should be directed that they are not entitled to find the necessary intention unless they feel sure that death or serious bodily harm was a virtual certainty (barring some unforeseen intervention) as a result of the defendant's action and that the defendant appreciated that such was the case.
It is clear that Lord Steyn intended that a virtual or moral certainty test should necessarily lead to a finding of intention. But by phrasing the guidelines in terms of what the jury are not entitled to do, the clarity of the direction is compromised. It would have been better expressed as a positive; i.e. "if the jury are sure that the defendant foresaw death or grievous bodily harm as a virtual certainty this equals intention". Nevertheless, it seems that "a result foreseen as virtually certain is an intended result",
Proposals for reform In 1978, the Law Commission of England and Wales published a Report on the Mental Element in Crime and proposed a revised definition of intention (to apply to all intention-based offences): - a person should be regarded as intending a particular result of his conduct if, but only if, either he actually intends that result or he has no substantial doubt that the conduct will have that result”.
In 1980 the Criminal Law Revision Committee, in its Report on Offences Against the Person, rejected a test based on knowledge of a high probability that death will result from one's actions. This was felt to be unsatisfactory because a test expressed in terms of probability was so uncertain in result. However, the Committee felt that it would be too narrow to confine intent to cases where the accused desires a certain result, preferring to include cases where the accused knows a particular result will follow. Therefore, according to the Committee a person intends a result when he: - (i)...wants the particular result to follow from his act, or
- (ii)...though he may not want the result to follow, knows that in the ordinary course of things it will do so.
In 1985, The Law Commission Report on Codification of the Criminal Law proposed the following definition of murder: - A person who kills another:
- (a) intending to kill; or
- (b) intending to cause serious injury and being aware that he may kill; [or
- (c) intending to cause fear of death or serious injury and being aware that he may kill]
- is guilty of murder.
The definition of intention provides that someone “intends” a result when: - ...he wants it to exist or occur, is aware that it exists or is almost certain that it exists or will exist or occur.
In 1993, the Law Commission revisited the definition of 'intention' proposing that: - [A] person acts....'intentionally' with respect to a result when:
- (i) it is his purpose to cause it; or
- (ii) although it is not his purpose to cause that result, he knows that it would occur in the ordinary course of events if he were to succeed in his purpose of causing some other result.
References - The Law Commission of England and Wales, Report on the Mental Element in Crime, Law Commission Report No. 89, (1978)
- Criminal Law Revision Committee of England and Wales, Offences Against the Person Cmnd 7844, 14th Report, (1980)
- The Law Commission of England and Wales, Codification of the Criminal Law, Law Commission Report No. 143, (1985)
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