Criminal Law: Notes

Week 2

Mens Rea
 The defendant’s mental state.
 Mens Rea and Actus Reus are necessary for a crime; apart from in strict liability crimes when mens rea is not necessary.
 Different crimes have different mens rea.
 Example: murder requires intention to cause death or GBH.
 Sometimes an offence will have different mens rea for different aspects of the crime.
 Example: rape needs intention to commit sexual intercourse but only needs recklessness as to whether the victim is consenting.

Intention
 The most blameworthy state of mind – worse to kill intentionally than recklessly or negligently. Meaning of Intention
 House of Lords => intention is to be given its ordinary meaning.
 Judges should not elaborate or paraphrase what is meant by intention – avoid defining it; leave it to good sense of jury – common sense meaning of the word.
 What is ordinary meaning? Courts presume it is obvious….so don’t issue a definition…but widely accepted definition is:

“A defendant intends a consequence if he acts with the aim or purpose of producing that consequence.”
 Duff’s test of failure is a good way of testing whether intention was present:
 Had the result not occurred, would the defendant have considered it a failure?
 YES = Intention was present
 However, this test has to be treated with caution when considering cases where the

result is a means to achieve a desired end.
 E.g. A kills B to get B’s inheritance – his desired end is getting the inheritance.
 If B didn’t die, but A somehow got the inheritance anyway, then Duff’s failure test would have the answer of NO (because he got the inheritance) and would therefore suggest that A didn’t have the intention of killing B.
 However, it is clear that A did intend to kill B – when we consider the purpose of the defendant this includes not only the end (getting the inheritance) but also means used to achieve that end (killing B).
Intention v Foresight
 Whether the defendants