Law

Law

(1) Advise Alf as to his criminal liability for homicide, including any defenses he may have. You should pay particular attention to actus reus and mens rea.

Homicide is defined as the unlawful killing of another human being. The legal definition of homicide includes several types of acts including intentional crimes like murder and involuntary acts like manslaughter. Each classification of homicide crimes carries with it different legal consequences. Also, the types of defenses available for each homicide crime may vary depending on the nature of the crime. Criminal liability is what unlocks the logical structure of the criminal law. Each element of a crime that the prosecutor needs to prove (beyond a reasonable doubt) involves a principle of criminal liability. There are some crimes that only involve a subset of the principles of liability, but these are rare and are called "crimes of criminal conduct." Burglary, for example, is such a crime because all you need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt is an actus reus concurring with a mens rea. On the other hand, there are crimes that involve all the principles of liability, and these are called "true crimes" that reflect "black letter law." Homicide, for example, is such a crime because you need to prove actus reus, mens rea, concurrence, causation, and harm. The requirement that the prosecutor must prove each element of criminal liability beyond a reasonable doubt is called the "corpus delicti rule."

Mens rea, or "guilty" intent, deals with what the defendant needs to have been thinking at the time he or she committed the actus reus for criminal liability to attach. In order to be guilty of most crimes, the defendant must have had the mens rea required for the crime he was committing at the time he committed the criminal act. As with the actus reus, there is no single mens rea that is required for all crimes. Rather, it will be different for each specific crime. Please note that the mens rea is not the same thing as motive. The mens rea refers to the intent with which the defendant acted when committing his criminal act. On the other hand, the motive refers to the reason that the defendant committed his criminal act.

It is very important to remember that motive is not an element to the crime. Although a prosecutor will almost certainly want to prove that the defendant had a motive for committing the crime in order to strengthen the prosecution's argument that the defendant did commit the crime, proving motive is not essential to proving criminal liability. In fact, if a prosecutor can prove motive and not mens rea, the defendant must be acquitted no matter how bad the motive is. Conversely, as we have seen with the above example, if the prosecution can prove the mens rea along with the actus reus, the defendant will be convicted no matter how good or noble his motive might have been. See State v. Asher, 8 S.W. 177

Mens rea is traditionally divided into ...