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The crime of battery, for example, only requires the basic intent that the actor knew or should have known that his action would lead to harmful contact with the victim. A limited number of offences are defined to require a further element in addition to basic intent, and this additional element is termed specific intent. There are two classes ...
A specific intent crime requires the doing of an act coupled with specific intent or objective. Specific intent cannot be inferred from the act. The major specific intent crimes are: conspiracy (intent to have crime completed), attempt (intent to complete a crime – whether specific or not, but falling short in completing the crime ...
In the former, the picture is more complicated and unclear, although it is known that intoxication will not provide a defence where recklessness can be shown on the accepted facts. Crimes of specific intent include murder, and those of basic intent most crimes of recklessness, including manslaughter.
Judges normally do not define intention for juries, and the weight of authority is to give it its current meaning in everyday language as directed by the House of Lords in R v Moloney, [1] where can be found references to a number of definitions of intention using subjective and objective tests, and knowledge of consequences of actions or omissions.
Mens rea refers to the crime's mental elements of the defendant's intent. This is a necessary element—that is, the criminal act must be voluntary or purposeful. Mens rea is the mental intention (mental fault), or the defendant's state of mind at the time of the offense, sometimes called the guilty mind. It stems from the ancient maxim of ...
In effect piling an inchoate crime onto an inchoate crime, the possession of burglary tools with the intent to use them in a burglary is a serious offense, a felony in some jurisdictions. Gloves that a defendant was trying to shake off as he ran from the site of a burglary were identified as burglar's tools in Green v. State (Fla. App. 1991).
The severity of criminal offenses often depends on the type and the degree of intent involved. [91] [90] But the specific characterizations and the role of intent differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. [92] In criminal law, an important distinction is between general and specific intent. General intent is the weaker term.
Therefore, intoxication will rarely (if ever) deny the mens rea of crimes of basic intent. With specific intent, the character of the act is criminalised, for the act itself is often objectively innocent. Appropriation of an item is perfectly innocent, yet when one appropriates with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of it, there is a ...