The importance of Mens Rea in current criminal law Essay

The importance of Mens Rea in current criminal law - Essay ExampleMurder required a malicious state of mind, whereas theft required a felonious state of mind.Mens Rea is generally used along with the words general absorbed, however this creates confusion since general intent is used to calculate criminal liability when a defendant does not intend to bring about a particular result. On the other hand specific intent describes a particular state of mind above and beyond what is generally required. 1To secure a conviction, the criminal prosecution side must prove that the defendant pull the crime while in a certain state of mind. The definition is specified of every crime before a person can be convicted as a prerequisite for Mens Rea. There are three states of mind which constitute the necessary Mens Rea for a criminal offence. These are intention, recklessness and negligence and are described below. 3Direct intent is the normal situation where the consequences of a persons actio ns are desired. Oblique intent comes in the situation where the consequence is known by the defendant as virtually certain, although it is not desired for its own sake, and the defendant goes ahead with his actions anyway.The law states that hyperopia of consequences can only be evidence of intention if the impeach knew that those consequences would definitely happen. Therefore just a possibility of a particular occurrence is not sufficient.A court or jury in find out whether a person has committed an offence, (a) shall not be bound in law to infer that he intended or foresaw a result of his actions by reason only of its being a natural and probable consequence of those actions but (b) shall decide whether he did intend or foresee that result by reference to all the evidence drawing such inferences from the evidence as appear proper in the circumstances.Consequently, where foresight needs to be established a person is not to be taken as intending the natural and probable conseque nces of his act simply because they were natural and probable, although a jury may infer that from looking for at all the evidence. The test is therefore subjective and a jury is to decide what the defendants intention was from considering all the evidence.The cases where they were applied areThe relationship between foresight and intention was considered by the House of Lords inHyam v DPP 1975 AC 55R v Moloney 1985 1 All ER 1025R v autograph and Shankland 1986 2 WLR 257.It is important to note that foresight of consequences is not the same as intention but only evidence of intentionR v Scalley 1995 Crim LR 504.The near recent case in this area is the decision of the House of Lords inR v Woollin 1998 4 All ER 103.The law says - To require cogent evidence that it was the defendants purpose to bring about a particular consequence may involve placing a very heavy evidential burden on the prosecution (R v Moloney, 1985). Criminal law normally only requires proof of oblique intent (fo resight intent) as opposed to direct intentRecklessnessRecklessness is taking an unjustified risk. In most cases, there is clear subjective evidence that the accused predicted but did not desire the particular