Criminal Responsibility and Defenses

Explain the nature of and types of defenses to criminal liability.

There are three basic elements in the commission of a crime. All are related to the concept on mens rea, which is Latin for guilty mind. It could be thought of as the state of mind of the suspect when the crime was committed. The elements are: “a mental state, prohibited action and lack of legal justification. Each of these elements must be proven by the government beyond a reasonable doubt. If any element is not proven, the person charged must be found not guilty.” (Shestokas)

The status of the suspect’s mind can be in one of four states: He can purposely cause the crime to be committed, or act purposely; He can act knowingly, with the understanding that his actions will result in a crime being committed; He can act recklessly and disregard any effects his actions may have; and finally he could act negligently, purposely deviating from the care a normal person would show in a situation. (Shestokas)

The mental attitude, the mens rea, must also be accompanied by the actus reus, or bad act, the actual act that is criminal. Using an example of a shopper for an example: You can walk in a store and think about stealing from it. You have not broken a law, there is no law against thinking about stealing and you have not committed the actual act. You may walk out of the store without paying for something – say you had your hands full and temporarily used a pocket to hold something and forgot about it. You have committed the act, but did not have the mental state of planning to break the law. The two must exist simultaneously for the law to be broken. Act and intent must occur together.

Distinguish justification from excuse.

There are some legal excuses for committing a crime. Situations where mens rea and actus reus occur simultaneously yet there is a legal excuse or justification for committing the crime. When there is a legal excuse or justification, this is called an affirmative defense. Some examples of this are:

Insanity
Entrapment
Self-defense
Necessity
Duress
Involuntary Intoxication (Shestakos)

“When operating in this fashion, justification and excuse provide an exculpatory rationale for finding an actor not guilty, even if he has engaged in all the conduct, possessed the state of mind, and caused the harm otherwise necessary to constitute a crime. These defensive theories, as traditionally understood, exonerate based on principles that are broader than the facts of a particular case, because of the manner in which they appropriately apply to the facts of a particular case.” (Milhizer) In simpler terms – justification and excuse defenses allow a jury to make a judgment ass to whether a defendant should be declared a criminal and punished.

Justification defenses focus on the act and not the actor. In some way the criminal conduct is viewed as socially useful. Excuse defenses focus on the actor and not the act. Even though the defendant may have harmed society, they are not to be blamed, for whatever reason.

Again, an example would make it easier to understand: A mother may trespass into a hardware store to appropriate tools to save her son from a burning building. The act is justified. She could also rob the store because her son’s kidnapper demanded she do so in exchange for her son’s safety. The actor is justified. In neither case would the mother be held responsible for the crime. (Milhizer)

However, criminal law must maintain a distinct line and division between justification and excuse so that they may continue to be used appropriately in a court of law.

Explore the concept of criminal capacity.

Individuals with reduced mental ability that prevents the individual from being able to understand the difference between right and wrong also prevents that individual from being held liable for criminal acts. Incidents such as mental retardation, insanity, and infancy could all apply.

In general, under common law, children under age seven are not considered able to be held for many crimes because they do not understand them. Children from seven to fourteen can be held for certain crimes. In addition, children over fourteen can be treated as adults. In modern times, each state has its own standards for this determination for children.

In the cases of reduced mental abilities and insanity, it is a situation where the psychiatrist often need to work with the police to make sure that everything that needs to be proven is understood by the defendant.

“U.S. Courts look to a variety of factors when the capacity presumption is at issue, and they usually hold that the younger the child, the stronger must be the evidence of mental capacity.” (Gardner and Anderson)

Discuss the differences between legal and medical perspectives on mental illness and insanity.

It should be that, as public knowledge of mental illness increases, the legal and medical definitions should become closer to each other. Insanity, on the other hand, is purely a legal term.

To make things even harder, mental illness and insanity are not synonymous. Only some mental illness constitutes insanity. Insanity, however, includes mental illness and mental deficiencies. So applying the medical terms to legal matters brings much of what we talked about into conflicts. Mens rea, responsibility, prisons, and hospitalization and even the concept of punishment versus treatment are all part of the new and evolving problem that the combination of the two worlds brings into play. Law and science combine, argue, debate, and separate again, leaving this foggy patch between the two that you can almost see through, and then the patches of fog grow thicker and the two are almost totally separate in their views and opinions on the topics.

Every time the insanity defense is used in a very public and nationally watched case, there is a plea to remove it from all legal use. In addition, every time there is a convict on death row who is obviously mentally incapacitated, there are cries for leniency and recognition of the obvious injustice. The groups are not yet as violent as many other public debates, but someday they may become equally vociferous in their arguments.

REFERENCES

Gardner, Thomas J. and Terry M. Anderson. (2009) Criminal Law. Cengage Learning.

Milhizer, Eugene R. St. John's Law Review, Summer 2004. “Justification and Excuse: What They Were, What They Are, and What They Ought To Be.” Retrieved 3/29/10.

Shestokas, David J. (2008) “Principles of Criminal Liability.” Retrieved 3/29/10.