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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.
Intent is defined in English law by the ruling in R v Mohan [1976] QB 1 as "the decision to bring about a prohibited consequence" (malum prohibitum). [1] [2] [3] A range of words represents shades of intent in criminal laws around the world. The mental element, or mens rea, of murder, for example, was historically called malice aforethought.
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 ...
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.
Transferred intent (or transferred mens rea, or transferred malice, in English law) is a legal doctrine that holds that, when the intention to harm one individual inadvertently causes a second person to be hurt instead, the perpetrator is still held responsible.
In English law, the mens rea requirement of murder is either an intention to kill or an intention to cause grievous bodily harm. In R v Moloney [1985], [ 15 ] Lord Bridge held that intent, as defined in the mens rea requirement of murder, 'means intent', so the jury should simply use the term intent legally as they would in normal parlance.
In his account of a 2003 combat deployment in Iraq, Soft Spots, Marine Sgt. Clint Van Winkle writes of such an incident: A car carrying two Iraqi men approached a Marine unit and a Marine opened fire, putting two bullet holes in the windshield and leaving the driver mortally wounded and his passenger torn open but alive, blood-drenched and ...
The terms actus reus and mens rea developed in English Law are derived from a principle stated by Edward Coke, namely, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, [1] which means: "an act does not make a person guilty unless (their) mind is also guilty"; hence, the general test of guilt is one that requires proof of fault, culpability or ...