Justification and Capacity 10/31/11 CJA 354 Richard S. Stolker When a person commits a crime, he or she tries to give a reason why they had to do it. The reason a person gives is his or her way of justifying the actions. Is there a difference between justification and excuses? How can police officers and judges tell when a person is trying to justify his or her actions or giving excuses? Everyone has the capacity to commit crimes but not everyone has the mental capacity or criminal capacity to understand the crime committed.
He proposed three reasons as to why; their interactions with the police, their appearance, and the circumstances of their arrest. These three things, in Becker’s view, contributed to a person being labelled by the police and by society on the whole as a criminal. Item A further addresses Becker’s proposal stating, ‘deviant or criminal individuals are only labelled when their actions are discovered and provoke a reaction from society’. He claimed that a crime is only a crime if it is labelled as that by society. This would suggest that through the labelling theory crime is socially constructed and is only perceived as a crime when society labels it as that.
Crime is defined as “an act prohibited and punished by law” (Collins, 2006) but there has been much debate about what ‘crime’ is. Harm, social agreement and official societal response are the three key elements of determining crime. A relationship exists between the three key concepts that would determine whether or not an act is a crime. If an action caused harm then society would be outraged and would create a law to punish those responsible and prohibit further acts occurring. From this emerged the consensus position on crime which states that crimes are acts that produce intense moral outrage amongst society (Muncie & McLaughlin, 2003).
So the defendant does not have to have the intention to commit an act or have any knowledge of the circumstances that makes an act a criminal offence. The second type of strict liability is a more common type, with this type of strict liability it is at least necessary for the defendant to have intended to commit the act, but the fact that the offence is one of strict liability means that the defendant need have no knowledge of the circumstances that make his act a criminal offence. An example which shows this is in the case of R V Prince (1875) within this case the defendant knew that the girl he took was in the possession of her father however he thought she was aged 18 and did not know that she was only 16. The result was that he was convicted because he had the intention to remove the girl from her father’s possession whether he assumed her age was 18 or something else. With this case we can clearly see that the mens rea was required for part of the actus reus and he had the necessary intentions.
2003. p. 114). The prosecutor’s main roles are to establishing that those guilty are prosecuted, and to determine which cases are weak and weed them out. Meyer & Grant (2003) state that, “ the tasks that prosecutors perform fall into three broad categories: planning and supervising the investigation phase of criminal and civil cases, case preparations, and responding to the issues related to appeals. The defense attorney’s role is to protect an individuals right when he or she has been accused of committing a crime, and to ensure that the individual is not prosecuted unjustly or falsely tried. A prosecutor presents evidence to prove that the defendant is guilty of the crime and the defense attorney tries to prove that the defendant is not guilty.
This was not surprising, as there was no previous history of a democracy in Germany before the Frankfurt Parliament, therefore there was not much support from the ordinary people for the new concept. Without military power, the new Parliament had none of the two principal needs for enforcement of ideas. They didn’t have the power of “fear” – something crucial which was needed to get in the hearts and minds of opposers to the acts the Parliament issued. Secondly, they had no respect – without which, people wouldn’t look to the Parliament and acknowledge any requests. The lack of respect (due to a lack of military power) meant
Criminal Defense Analysis Stephanie Caradine CJA/354 July 18, 2011 Criminal Defense Analysis To define what criminal defense is there should be a clear understanding of what criminal law is before analyzing the various levels of defense. According to Worldwide Legal Directories (Criminal, n.d.) the term criminal law or penal law is defined as the prosecution from high levels toward an individual for an act that has been categorized as an offense. As a group of laws that consists of common and statutory laws, they are distributed according to the crime and sentences involving the illegal offense. When crimes are committed they will be classified by either misdemeanor or felonies based upon the degree of the crime that had been committed and what form of punishment may be granted will differ. After a crime has been committed and the individual who is responsible has been caught, they will begin the process involving “criminal defense.” When an individual breaks the law, there are various forms of defense that he or she may be eligible in using in regard to the charges that are being brought up against them.
A person can either allow a person to harm them or fight and in some cases even kill. The stand your ground rule is very controversial. Many argue that just because a person is being attacked does not give them the right to kill. Although, two wrongs don’t make a right, but when protecting yourself, the only thing that is on a person’s heart is making it out of the situation alive. In my opinion, the rule does not lead to more crime, simply because "There's nothing in the statute that provides for any kind of aggressive action in terms of pursues and confront”.
This essay will attempt to establish the core characteristics the elements of mens rea, Intention (direct and oblique) and Subjective recklessness and explore the differences between these elements. Intention is one of the main elements of mens rea and is used to examine the state of mind in different crimes. For murder, intention is the only form of mens rea. Intention is the highest degree of mens rea. Being the highest degree of mens rea, one would expect to find a statute or case in common law that defines intention unequivocally and rigidly.
The elements of crime are a series of components that must be present in order for it to be demonstrated that someone is guilty of a crime. The prosecution must provide supporting evidence that all parts of the crime are present in a given case and the defense can challenge the validity of a case on one or more elements, while different legal systems have different standards, there have been some truly bizarre cases that have tested the legal definition of the elements of crime