Consider the Concept of Mens Rea and Its Inclusion with the Legal Models of Intent and Recklessness

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Joseph Neill C2772301 W100 eTMA 03 Part 1 eTMA 03 Part 2 Word Count 1401 This essay intends to consider the concept of Mens Rea and its inclusion with the legal models of intent and recklessness. The concept of a defendant committing a crime involves two components. The Actus Reus (The criminal activity its self), and the Mens Rea, or the “Guilty Mind”, the mental or blameworthiness component of the criminal activity. In British law, other than crimes of strict liability, both are required for conviction. You need to have done the criminal act and understood that it was criminal whilst doing it. Although sounding simple, it is not and has had a strained development in case law over many years, at this point our consideration must start. One may carry out an action but ones blameworthiness may have one of four origins. You may be genuinely mistaken in your behaviour, you may be reckless, you may have every intention of doing what you have intended to do or you may have caused without intention an event as a consequence of a train of events you set I motion. The limits of Mens Rea can often be extended by the court as each crime can carry a different degree of culpability depending on the wording of the charge set against the defendant. But ultimately the Mens Rea is a reference to “What the defendant was thinking at the time of the offence” and has no moral component. No matter how worthy, was the action intentional or was it indirectly intentional. That is, did the event occur as an inevitable but unintentional consequence of the primary intention of the defendant? What was the defendant thinking at the time? This value judgment can have two flavours. Subjective, being what the defendant was thinking what consequence his action would culminate at the time and objective, what consequence an

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