The Three Elements on Why People Commit a Crime

Mens rea, actus reus, and concurrence are all elements to a crime. These elements must be present to charge a person with a crime. The guilty mind is known as the mens rea being that a person has the intent to commit the crime with the mental capacity. The “actus reus” of an

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.

There are six elements when committing a crime; corpus delicti, actus reus, mens rea, specific intent, general intent, and negligence. The first, Corpus delicti, is defined as "the body of crime” this is the material that substance a crime. The phrase corpus delicti means that before a person can be persecuted there must be concrete evidence that the crime was committed. The corpus delicti also helps to describe the evidence that proves that a crime has been committed.

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.

Actus Reus Non Facit Reum Nisi Mens Sit Rea: An act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty. In the case of R. v. Pickton (2010), the Supreme Court of Canada convicts serial killer Robert Pickton of second degree murder and demonstrates that even if an individual was not the sole perpetrator of a crime, they are still held equally liable for the crime as long as they are an active participant or otherwise abetted the misconduct. The Supreme Courts made the correct decision in dismissing Pickton’s appeal.

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 five principles of a crime are the guilty act or actus reus, the guilty intent or mens rea, the relationship between guilty act and guilty intent, the attendant circumstances and the results. The guilty act or actus reus is the inception of a crime, “this criminal liability occurs only after a voluntary act that results in criminal harm” (Neubauer & Fradella, 2014). This protects Americans from being punished for bad thoughts. The guilty intent or mens rea establishes and distinguishes between the mental state required in committing a crime. This insures that Americans are not prosecuted for innocently causing harm to another. The relationship and union between the guilty act and the guilty intent further distinguishes an act from being

To convict an individual of a criminal offence, the prosecution must be able to prove to the Jury or Magistrate that the individual is criminally responsible. This is achieved by proving the Mens Rea (guilty mind) and Actus Reus (guilty act) of the accused beyond all reasonable doubt.

The second component of a crime, mens reus, or criminal intent, was demonstrated by the following example. At one point Miller covered Cannon with a sheet and stated, “Cole, I am God, I’ve come to take your life” (2012, p.1) The third element of a crime, concurrence, was chronologically sequenced with Miller’s intent to commit the act followed by his commission of the criminal act.

When one is guilty, it means that he or she is “culpable of or responsible for a specified wrongdoing” or, “having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, especially against moral or penal law; justly subject to a certain accusation or penalty.” If someone is charged as guilty, they have broken a law or performed an unjust or immoral act to deserve punishment. However, this does not mean that through reasonable suspicion that an individual can be determined as guilty. It means that “a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. In other words, the prosecution must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, each essential element of the crime charged.” In other words, a particular person must be proven guilty of a crime through proof and evidence. In the story provided by Serial, Sarah Koenig narrates the case of the murder of Hae Min Lee. Seventeen years ago, on January 13, Hae Min Lee, a senior at Woodlawn High School, was reported missing. Weeks later, her body is found and the cause of her death was determined to be manual strangulation. Her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Musud Syed, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life plus thirty years in prison. The case against him was mainly based on the story of one witness, Jay Wilds. Now, past reporter and journalist, Sarah Koenig is reopening this case to find out what really happened. Through documents, police interrogations, testimonies, and interviews, she collects evidence to look for the answer.

In order for a trial to be brought, the police and prosecutors might be able to prove that the elements of the particular offence are present. In this criminal case both Actus reus, Mens rea as well causation was clearly shown through the behavior of Katherine Knight.

When a person is charged with a crime the type of defense that they choose could ultimately determine their fate. There are many different types of defenses that exist in our criminal justice system. In this paper I will be taking a brief look at two different cases that have implored two different types of criminal defenses. I will look at the nature and types of defenses used in the cases and what evidence was used to demonstrate defense. I will describe how justification and excuse played a role in the cases and I will also be describing the outcome of each case.

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

If I were conducting an in-service to my fellow officers over the five elements needed to constitute a crime, I would do by going over, explicitly what each element is and provide an example. Furthermore, I would then tie all elements in together for a larger example. According to Brody and Acker (2010), Professor Jerome Hall developed the framework of the five general elements to a crime, which are:

Actus reus is the Latin term for “guilty act” and is defined as the physical element of an offense covering all acts which are not psychological, it is one of two integral elements which are needed to make up an offence the other being mens reus, when these two are paired together without any defence the resulting verdict in a court of law would be guilty.