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In criminal law, mens rea (/ ˈ m ɛ n z ˈ r eɪ ə /; Law Latin for "guilty mind" [1]) is the mental state of a defendant who is accused of committing a crime. In common law jurisdictions, most crimes require proof both of mens rea and actus reus ("guilty act") before the defendant can be found guilty.
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 11 others, proof of some culpable mental state was an element of capital murder. In 13 states, aggravating circumstances above and beyond the fact of the murder itself were required before imposing the death penalty. This left eight states—out of 36—allowed the death penalty for merely participating in a felony in which a murder was ...
In criminal law, culpability, or being culpable, is a measure of the degree to which an agent, such as a person, can be held morally or legally responsible for action and inaction. It has been noted that the word, culpability, "ordinarily has normative force, for in nonlegal English, a person is culpable only if he is justly to blame for his ...
It is very difficult to put it in a phrase, but it has been put in this way: that there must be aberration or weakness of mind; that there must be some form of mental unsoundness; that there must be a state of mind which is bordering on, though not amounting to, insanity; that there must be a mind so affected that responsibility is diminished ...
An omission can be criminal if there is a statute that requires one to act. A duty of care is imposed and one is required to act when one is: under a contract (R v Pittwood [5]), has assumed care (R v Stone and Dobinson [6]), has created a dangerous situation (R v Miller [7]), or fails to perform one's official position (R v Dytham. [8]).
The Model Penal Code (MPC) is a model act designed to stimulate and assist U.S. state legislatures to update and standardize the penal law of the United States. [1] [2] The MPC was a project of the American Law Institute (ALI), and was published in 1962 after a ten-year drafting period. [3]
In criminal law and in the law of tort, recklessness may be defined as the state of mind where a person deliberately and unjustifiably pursues a course of action while consciously disregarding any risks flowing from such action. [a] Recklessness is less culpable than malice, but is more blameworthy than carelessness.