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In the criminal law, recklessness (sometimes also termed willful blindness which may have a different meaning in the United States) 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 and a mens rea, i.e. a person cannot be guilty for thoughts alone. There must also be an appropriate intention, recklessness, or criminal negligence at the relevant time (see concurrence). Image File history File links Scale_of_justice. ...
English law is a formal term of art that describes the law for the time being in force in England and Wales. ...
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 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. ...
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 determines the extent to which a corporation as a fictitious person can be liable for the acts and omissions of 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 criminal law, strict liability is liability where mens rea (Latin for guilty mind) does not have to be proved in relation to one or more elements comprising the actus reus (Latin for guilty act) although intention, recklessness or knowledge may be required in relation to other elements of the...
In the criminal law, an omission or failure to act will constitute an actus reus (Latin for guilty act) and give rise to liability only when the law imposes a duty to act and the defendant is in breach of that duty. ...
For other uses, see concurrency. ...
It has been suggested that presumed knowledge of the law be merged into this article or section. ...
An inchoate offense is a crime. ...
In English criminal law, incitement is an anticipatory common law offence and is the act of persuading, encouraging, instigating, pressuring, or threatening so as to cause another to commit a 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, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement. ...
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, the doctrine of common purpose, common design or joint enterprise refers to the situation where two or more people embark on a project with a common purpose that results in the commission of a crime. ...
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For the law in other criminal jurisdictions, see diminished responsibility. ...
For a general discussion of the principles, see duress In English law, duress is a defence which allows a limited excuse in favour of those who commit crimes because they are forced or compelled to do so against their will by the threats of another. ...
The MNaghten Rules are used to establish insanity as an excuse to potential criminal liability, but the definitional criteria establish insanity in the legal and not the psychological sense. ...
For the discussion on general principles and policy, see necessity In English law, the defence of necessity recognises that there may be situations of such an overwhelming urgency, that a person must be allowed to respond by breaking the law. ...
For an description of the general principles, see provocation (legal). ...
In English criminal law, the defence of self-defence provides for the right of people to act in a manner that would be otherwise unlawful in order to preserve the physical integrity of themselves or others or to prevent any crime. ...
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. ...
It has been suggested that Assault causing bodily harm be merged into this article or section. ...
Grievous bodily harm or GBH is a phrase used in English criminal law which was introduced in ss18 and 20 Offences Against The Person Act 1861. ...
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 Malicious Damage Act of 1861 is a law now mostly concerned with damage to property in the transport sector of society. ...
Nuisance is a common law tort. ...
The Theft Act 1968 (1968 c. ...
Everyday instance of theft: the bike which fits on this wheel has disappeared. ...
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. ...
For other uses, see Blackmail (disambiguation). ...
A cars handling is a description of the way the car performs, particularly during cornering. ...
The Theft Act 1978 supplemented the earlier deception offences contained in ss15 and 16 Theft Act 1968 by reforming some aspects of those offences and adding new provisions. ...
Forgery is the process of making or adapting objects or documents (see false document), with the intention to deceive. ...
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Bribery is a crime implying a sum or gift given alters the behaviour of the person in ways not consistent with the duties of that person. ...
Perjury is the act of lying or making verifiably false statements on a material matter under oath or affirmation in a court of law or in any of various sworn statements in writing. ...
Modern 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 area of 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 common 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 (e. ...
Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of statutory and common law that deals with crime and the legal punishment of criminal offenses. ...
Willful blindess is a term used in law to describe a situation in which an individual seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable. ...
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 Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ...
Strict liability is a legal doctrine in tort law that makes a person responsible for the damages caused by their actions regardless of culpability (fault) or mens rea. ...
Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of law that regulates governmental sanctions (such as imprisonment and/or fines) as retaliation for crimes against the social order. ...
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 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. ...
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...
For other uses, see concurrency. ...
Definition of terms
Criminal law recognises recklessness as one of the mens rea elements to establish liability. It shows less culpability than intention, but more culpability than criminal negligence. The test of any mens rea element is always based on an assessment of whether the accused had foresight of the prohibited consequences and desired to cause those consequences to occur. The three types of test are: The mens rea is the Latin term for guilty mind used in the criminal law. ...
In the most general sense, a liability is anything that is a hindrance, or puts individuals at a disadvantage. ...
Culpability (Blameworthiness) is the state of deserving to be blamed for a crime or offence. ...
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...
- subjective where the court attempts to establish what the accused was actually thinking at the time the actus reus was caused;
- objective where the court imputes mens rea elements on the basis that a reasonable person with the same general knowledge and abilities as the accused would have had those elements; or
- hybrid, i.e. the test is both subjective and objective.
The most culpable mens rea elements will have both foresight and desire on a subjective basis. Recklessness usually arises when an accused is actually aware of the potentially adverse consequences to the planned actions, but has gone ahead anyway, exposing a particular individual or unknown victim to the risk of suffering the foreseen harm but not actually desiring that the victim be hurt. The accused is a social danger because he or she is gambling with the safety of others and the fact that the accused might have taken some steps to try to avoid the injury from occurring is relevant only to mitigate the sentence. Note that gross criminal negligence represents such a serious failure to foresee that in any other person, it would have been recklessness. Hence, the alternative phrase "wilful blindness" acknowledges the link representing either that the accused deliberately engineered a situation in which he or she was ignorant of material facts, or that the failure to foresee represented such a danger to others that it must be treated as though it was reckless. A trial at the Old Bailey in London as drawn by Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Pugin for Ackermanns Microcosm of London (1808-11). ...
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. ...
The reasonable man or reasonable person standard is a legal fiction that originated in the development of the common law. ...
In law, a sentence forms the final act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. ...
The modern definition of recklessness has developed from R v. Cunningham (1957) 2 AER 412 in which the definition of 'maliciously' for the purposes of the Offences Against The Person Act 1861 was held to require a subjective rather than objective test when a man released gas from the mains while attempting to steal money from the pay-meter. As a result the gas leaked into the house next door, and partially asphyxiated the man's mother-in-law: English law is a formal term of art that describes the law for the time being in force in England and Wales. ...
This page is a candidate to be copied to Wikisource. ...
- In any statutory definition of a crime, malice must be taken ... as requiring either:
- (1) an actual intention to do the particular kind of harm that in fact was done; or
- (2) recklessness as to whether such harm should occur or not (i.e. the accused has foreseen that the particular kind of harm might be done and yet has gone on to take the risk of it).
Since then, the pendulum has swung between subjective and objective, and currently rests nearer to the subjective end of the scale.
R v Caldwell (1981) 1 AER 961 Caldwell, a disgruntled former hotel employee who had recently been fired by his boss, got very drunk one night in late 1979 and decided to set fire to his former employer's hotel, intending to damage the property. At the time he set the blaze, however, there were ten guests asleep inside the hotel, and though the fire was extinguished quickly, Caldwell was charged not only with arson (to which he pleaded guilty), but with the more serious charge of arson with intent to endanger human life.
In English law, the offence of "arson" was abolished in the Criminal Damage Act 1971, although the use of the word was retained to express the particular "horror" with which the public views offences involving the deliberate use of fire. Caldwell was convicted under s1(2) Act 1971, which requires that the defendant shall: Under English law, the Criminal Damage Act 1971 is the main statute covering damage to property. ...
- (a) intend to destroy or damage any property or be reckless as to [the same] and
- (b) intend by the destruction or damage to endanger the life of another or be reckless as to whether the life of another would be thereby endangered.
The House of Lords was mainly concerned with the extent to which self-induced drunkenness could be a defence to offences of specific intent and basic intent (see intention), the latter would encompass recklessness. The Lords ultimately ruled that self-induced intoxication could be a defence to specific intent, but not to basic intent, i.e. recklessness. Although the discussion of recklessness tends to be largely obiter dicta, Lord Diplock's discussion contains what was intended as a model direction, namely that a defendant is reckless when: This article is about the British House of Lords. ...
An intoxication defense, in criminal law, is a defense by excuse, via which a defendant argues that they should not be held criminally liable for actions which broke the law, because they were intoxicated. ...
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 law, the term dicta is used to refer to a judges statement of legal opinion that is not directly relevant to the case being heard. ...
- (1) he does an act which in fact creates an obvious risk that property will be destroyed or damaged; and
- (2) when he does the act he either has not given any thought to the possibility of there being any such risk or has recognised that there was some risk involved and has nonetheless gone on to do it.
To that extent, the test is one of obviousness, i.e. if it would have been obvious to the reasonable person, the defendant will be taken to have foreseen it. But the focus of this test is the nature of the defendant's conduct rather than his mental state and it became the subject of major criticism. For example, how was the direction to apply to the defendant who had considered the risk and only continued to act after deciding (wrongly as it would later appear) that no risk existed? In Elliot v C (a minor) (1983) 2 AER 1005, a 14-year-old schoolgirl of low intelligence, who was tired and hungry, inadvertently burned down a garden shed. It was accepted that she did not foresee the risk of fire, and that she had not considered the possible consequences of her action but the court reluctantly followed Caldwell. In the broader context, the Road Traffic Act 1991 reformed the offence of reckless driving by reverting to the old terminology of dangerous driving, i.e. apparently replacing a mens rea requirement with a fault element requiring dangerousness (see death by dangerous driving for the statutory version of a test of obviousness). In the continuing judicial debate, Lord Keith observed in R v Reid (1992) 3 AER 673 (a reckless driving case, that an absence of something from a person's state of mind is as much part of his or her state of mind as is its presence. Inadvertence to risk is no less a subjective state of mind than is disregard of a recognised risk. Lord Keith stressed that Lord Diplock qualified the model direction as "an appropriate instruction" only, seeking to introduce different standards for different offences. It was further argued that the model direction breached Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights in cases involving a minor or other person's of reduced capacity. The requirement is that "everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing". But, to judge the moral and legal culpability of a child by reference to the understanding and life experience of an adult is irrational and, therefore, unfair. In effect, it imposes strict liability. However, Z and others v United Kingdom (2002) 34 EHRR characterises Article 6 as procedural rather than substantive. It is also to be noted that after much criticism, the decision in R v Caldwell (1981) was overruled by the House of Lords in the case of R v G (2003). In English criminal law, the offence of causing death by dangerous driving is currently defined by the Road Traffic Act 1991 but, following Adomako [1995] 1 AC 171, the offence of motor manslaughter may now be the preferred charge. ...
The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, also known as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), was adopted under the auspices of the Council of Europe[1] in 1950 to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms. ...
In law, a person who is not yet a legal adult is known as a minor (known in some places as an infant or juvenile). ...
Culpability (Blameworthiness) is the state of deserving to be blamed for a crime or offence. ...
Strict liability is a legal doctrine in tort law that makes a person responsible for the damages caused by their actions regardless of culpability (fault) or mens rea. ...
Caldwell-style recklness (an objective test) was phased out after the case of Cunningham, which introduced subjective recklessness. The majority of mens rea of recklessness is now 'tested' usinghte Cunningham test
R v Gemmell and Richards (2003) 4 AER 765 Two boys, aged 11 and 12 years, were camping without their parents' permission when they entered the back yard of a shop in the early hours of the morning, Lighting some newspapers which they had found in the yard, they left, with the papers still burning. The newspapers set fire to nearby rubbish bins standing against the shop wall, where it spread up the wall and on to the roof of the shop. Approximately £1m damage was caused. When their appeal reached the House of Lords, Lord Bingham saw the need to modify Lord Diplock's definition to take account of the defence of infancy which contains the concept of "mischievous discretion". This rule requires the court to consider the extent to which children of eight or more years are able to understand the difference between "right" and "wrong". The Diplock test of obviousness might operate unfairly for 11- and 12-year-old boys if they were held to the same standard as reasonable adults. Bingham stated that a person acts 'recklessly' with respect to: The defense of infancy is a form of defense known as an excuse so that defendants falling within the definition of an infant are excluded from criminal liability for their actions, if at the relevant time, they had not reached an age of criminal responsibility. ...
- (i) a circumstance when he is aware of a risk that it exists or will exist;
- (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."
This brings the test back to a subjective standard so that defendants can be judged on the basis of their age, experience and understanding rather than on the standard of a hypothetical reasonable person who might have better knowledge and understanding. Nevertheless, the test remains hybrid because the credibility of the accused's denial of knowledge and understanding will always be judged against an objective standard of what you would expect a person of the same general age and abilities as the accused to have known.
In Booth v Crown Prosecution Service (2006) All ER (D) 225 (Jan), the Divisional Court upheld the defendant pedestrian's conviction on a charge under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 that, by rashly dashing into the road, he recklessly damaged the vehicle that hit him. This result must be correct if a pedestrian does actually consider the possibility of damage any vehicle that might become involved in an accident, but it seems more likely that, if the defendant stopped to consider any risks at all, it would surely have been confined to the risk of his own injury. Under English law, the Criminal Damage Act 1971 is the main statute covering damage to property. ...
See also Recklessness (psychology) Recklessness is wanton disregard for the dangers of a situation. ...
References - Davies, Mitchell, Tales from the (Thames) River Bank: R v G and Another (2004) Jo, of Criminal Law.
- Elliott, D. W. Endangering Life by Destroying or Damaging Property (1997) CLR 382.
- Field, Stewart & Lynn, Mervyn, The Capacity for Recklessness (1992) 12 Legal Studies 74.
- Field, Stewart & Lynn, Mervyn, Capacity, Recklessness and the House of Lords (1993) CLR 127.
- Leigh Recklessness After Reid (1993) 56 MLR 208.
- Williams, Glanville, Recklessness Redefined (1981) CLJ 252
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