Mens Rea And Actus Reus – Essentials Of A Crime

############################# Video Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCmuv2qjZDk

Mens Rea And Actus Reus – Essentials Of A Crime • Mens ReaMens rea is an essential part of deciding whether an act is culpable or not. Mens rea displays specific intent by the accused for the commission of the crime for which he is charged. The accused must be proven to have knowingly committed the crime, and had full knowledge of their actions and must have malafide intent towards the victim. Mens rea is also used in some civil suits, requiring the defendant to have been aware of the repercussions of their actions for a civil liability to arise, but usually, the Actus Reus takes precedence in cases of civil liability. • Further, an Act may be voluntary or involuntary, and the guilt is determined by the facts of the case. If a person drives while he's drunk and involuntarily causes harm to others, he is still guilty as it was a voluntary choice on his part to consume alcohol before driving, even though the crime itself was unintentional. However, if an otherwise healthy person suffers a heart attack while driving and involuntarily causes harm to others, he are not liable and is not guilty of the crime. • Actus Reus • Actus Reus is the physical aspect of a crime. The accused needs to have done something or omitted to do something, resulting in injury to the plaintiff, or the victim in civil cases. Without a guilty act, there can be no crime and no suit for damages can arise. An act alone does not make a crime, however, and both the intention of the person and the act itself, if such act is prohibited, combine to form the crime. In certain cases, circumstances of the case are also taken into consideration, and are often used to either conclusively prove guilt, or can be used to prove reasonable doubt of intention. (Example: – carrying a knife into someone's house with the express intention of committing the act of murder, or driving a car on a foggy night and accidentally striking someone attempting to unsafely cross the road.) • Actus Reus can also be the omission of an act, by omitting to do something that the accused knows he is bound by duty or law to do (example: – a mother intentionally omits to feed her female child, leading to the child's death.) The mother can legally be charged with causing death by negligence, and may also be charged with murder, if her intentions of murdering her infant can be proven in court.essential elements of a crime • In conclusion, the four essential elements of a crime are:- (1) the crime must be committed by a person, (2) there must be hurt or injury caused to another, (3) there must exist an Actus Reus, (4) there must be a Mens rea to commit the crime, with certain exceptions. • • #mensrea • #actusreus criminal law • actus reus criminal law • actus reus examples mens rea vs actus reus mens rea criminal law mens rea and actus reus Mens rea and actus reus criminal law Nupoor education world

#############################

New on site