Acts & Omissions Criminal Law

Precedents have played a significant role construction and transformation public policy over time. The concern that judges face is whether establishing a new duty of care will influence public policy. This is the issue that results from in the Cooper v. Hobart case. The judge constructed a final decision that Hobart did not owe a duty of care to Cooper due to explanations that are delineated in public policy. This essay will discuss in favour of the judge’s decision for the reason that establishing a new duty of care would have conflicted with existing public policy. Initially, I will be providing a concise summary about the case of Cooper v Hobart. This involves the facts, issues and ratio. Then, I will elucidate what the Anns test is

First and foremost, the meaning of crime is any act or omission of duty resulting in harm to society that is punishable by the state. On the face of it there is no clear definition of what those acts or omisions actually are. When a crime has been committed the prosecution has the 'standard of proof' to prove 'beyond resonable doubt' to a jury that the accused had committed the 'actus rea' and/or 'mens rea'. The Actus Rea refers to the guilty act and the Mens Rea refers to the guilty mind or the planning of the crime. During strict liability offences, mens rea doesn't have to be proven only the actus rea. This is because the act is enough to charge someone as the judge sees fit.

However, due to this idea of strict liability offences not requiring proof of fault leads to the simple moral claim of ‘is it right to punish a person who had no intent to commit a crime, and took precautions not to let anyone get harmed in any way, to still be convicted?’ This opens the argument against the use of strict liability as it suggests that no matter what the opposing says, strict liability is a criminal offence and it is not vigorously enforced. This in turn lowers the respect to law and the criminal justice system as it appears that the justice system cannot

The duty of easy rescue is perhaps one of the most heavily debated and most controversial topics in criminal law. The origin of this duty is Biblical and it aims to punish the so-called ‘bad Samaritan’ who fails to render assistance to a person in peril . Unlike the Anglo-American jurisdictions , most European states recognise the duty of easy rescue, albeit to different extents . Scots law per se does not impose a duty of easy rescue on ordinary citizens and failure to act constitutes a criminal offence only in exceptional circumstances; these include ex gratia close proximity relationships . In this essay, the author will purport to elucidate whether Scots law shall impose a duty of easy rescue, and if so, to what extent shall such duty be recognised in Scotland.

Actus Reus - "the criminal act" [Latin, Guilty act.] is an element of criminal responsibility, that a person acts wrongful or includes the physical components of a crime. Criminal statutes generally need proofs of both actus reus and mens rea on the portion of a defendant in command to establish criminal obligation.

Crimes all have two fundamental elements that must be present in order for an act or omission of duty to be classified as a criminal act. This involves the concept of actus reus or ‘guilty act’ in Latin and mens reus or ‘guilty mind’ in Latin. It is the role of the prosecution to prove that these elements are present to charge a person with a criminal act.

The idea of blame, defined as, “A particular kind of response (e.g. emotion), to a person, at fault, for a wrongful action,” plays a significant role in the study of crime, with respect to degrees of “fault.” In most modern societies, “criminal culpability,” or degrees of wrongdoing, makes a difference between the kinds of punishment one receives for his action(s). To be culpable for a crime, there must be a guilty act (Actus Rea), and a guilty mind (Mens Rea). Degrees of culpability often depends on the kind of mental state, (Mens Rea), one brings to the act in which he engaged. How much one is blameworthy for wrongful conduct depends in part on the state of mind in relation to the wrongful conduct. One’s mental state while engaging in wrongful conduct, which in a legal sense is determined by legislators, is characterized by the following terms: purposely, knowingly, recklessly and negligence.

Within certain circumstances, liability is based on the accused 's action, which is also known as an act of omission or negative act. Regardless of the defendant 's motive, the failure to act supports a finding of criminal liability only when the s/he is under a binding legal duty, has the necessary knowledge to behave aptly and carrying out his or her responsibility is possible. Even so, there are instances when the issue of guilt results from a lack thereof. Each element must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and decided as a matter of law by the court. With regard to any crime, all criminal elements are distinguishable and identifiable for the careful analysis of each issue. Take for example the difference between points of dispute in Proctor v. State (1918) and People v. Newton (1973) when reading Criminal Law: Cases and Methods.

Benge, R v (1865) pre-SCJA 1873 D, a foreman platelayer misread the timetable as to when a train was to arrive. He placed a flagman at the wrong distance giving insufficient warning to the driver. A train left the rails at a spot where rails had been taken up and not replaced. The negligence was that D did not take the correct care to make sure he was working at the right time, when any reasonable person would have known how dangerous the job can be and to double check they are correct.

The rule states, " A defendant may be excused from criminal responsibility if at the time of the commission of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from a disease of mind, as not to know the nature and the quality of the act he was doing..." (3)

A crime consists of an actus reus and a mens rea, in order to obtain a conviction of a criminal charge there must be a concurrence between the actus reus and mens rea. The elements of a criminal act

And finally circumstance, this states that and actus reus can only be established for certain crimes under certain circumstances, for example rape can only take place if one party does not give consent.

In the case R v. Dudley and Stephens, the two sailors should not have been found guilty or charged with murder. I will examine the case with two theories of punishment, retributivism and consequentialism. I am using these two different frameworks because they both have two different requirements in order to justify punishment. Retributivism requires agents to be morally responsible, while consequentialism requires an agent to be rational. It is important to distinguish how the same action can be found guilty or non guilty depending on the framework of punishment being used. Dudley and Stephens should be found guilty under a retributive framework of punishment, but be found innocent under a consequentialist one. However, my conclusion that both Dudley and Stephens should be exempt from criminal prosecution comes from looking at a combination of retributivism and consequentialism that Duff calls Side-Constrained Consequentialism. Side-Constrained Consequentialism is a combination of positive retributivism and consequentialism. Side-Constrained Consequentialism requires an agent to not only be a rational agent, but a moral one as well. I will begin by defining my terms and laying out the necessary details of the case. I will then review the case under the frameworks of consequentialism, retributivism, and Side-Constrained Consequentialism.

Despite the general principle excluding liability for omissions, liability may arise in certain exceptional circumstances. Although these situations where a duty may arise on the basis of an omission are difficult to classify, what is usually required in all of them is some element of proximity. This may be created in a number of situations which will now be looked at. In addition, in such cases, the factors for establishing a duty of care (forseeability, proximity, fair, just and reasonable) laid down in Caparo will also need to be looked at.

in criminal law and Beckett Ltd v. Lyons [1967] 1 All ER 833 the law