Actus Reus and Criminal Liability
Generally, the commitment of the crime leads to the criminal offences by the person and the court will impose the penalty or the prosecution on the person for such action. However there is a chance, that the offender can mitigate the criminal liability, with this regards the automatism, insanity and the diminished responsibility plays a significant role. The present study is based on criminal activity associated with actusrea and the relationship of the same with the automatism, insanity and the diminished responsibility. Further, in this study, it is also evaluated in what circumstances the criminal liability on the person cannot be imposed by the court.
“Consider whether the criminal law now has the right balance when dealing with defendants who have committed the actus reus of an offence but may have reduced or no culpability for the actions”
Actusreus is described as the external element or the objective element of a crime, which is the Latin word for the “guilty act” which demonstrate a sensible doubt in mixture with the men’srea, “guilty mind”. It creates criminal liability in the common law-based criminal rule in accordance with the law of England and Wales. In this approach, the conduct or behaviour can by themselves be a criminal (Robinson, 2017). For instance, the behaviour of lying beneath promise signifies the actusreus of lying under oath. In this, it is not important that whether the lie is supposed or in condition had some consequence on the outcome of the situation, the actus Reus of the offencecompletely dependupon the behaviour. The actusreus might relate to the consequence of the proceedings or oversight of the defendant. The behaviour itself might not be illegal, but the consequence of the demeanour possibly be a criminaloffence and same has been cited in the case of (R v Larsonneur (1933) 24 Cr App R 74. Example throwing a stone is not a crimehowever in case it strikes a person or broke a window it might sum to an offence. Causation should be recognized in all such crimes (González-Tapia and Obsuth, 2015).
Infrequently an oversight can sum to the actusreus of a crime (Mitchell, 2017). Oversight or failure to act usually carries no liabilities. The same implies that an individual will be considered as criminal only when they have exercised an optimistic act. Further, to explain this example is illustrated, individual A walking past a person B who was going on drown. Individual B could be saved if individual A holds their hand. Moreover, individual in case A does not hold their hand and person B drowns. In such a case individual A will not be liable legally.
Barricades to Criminal Liability
However the universal rule concerning omissions is that there is no legal responsibility for a stoppage to act. For example, in case an individual see a child jumping from the wall and still not taking any action to save that child, in such case individual will not be liable for their inaction despite how simple it might have been for them to secure the life of the child. The actusreus of a crime can be grouped within one or several of three categories that are following:
- Conduct – The actusreus needs a convinced conduct
- Circumstantial – in which the actions are not criminal, but the situations are.
- Result – The actusreus necessitate a consequence.
A person can be protected from the crime if the conditions on the basis of which crime occurred contradict the essential requirement of the crime. Here, Actusrea means the activities are automatic, and the offender is not aware of the activities or behaviour which had led them towards crime.The wrong thinking does not seek to chastise populace for their wickedness opinion (Duck v Peacock [1949]). Therefore, blame might be showed to be accountable for conduct or the continuation of the state of affairs forbidden by the criminal commandment earlier than legal responsibility might occur. Therefore legal responsibility will depend additionally on the accused state of mind at the point in time, more often than not intension or irresponsibility is necessary (Rumbold, 2018).
These barricades will assist in negate or eliminate the liability from the criminal offence. Automatism, insanity, and diminished responsibility are some example of the barricades. Further, the features of the automatism, insanity and the diminished responsibility have the same features but their implementation and the range is different (Yannoulidis, S., 2016). Where the state of mind of the offender at the time of committing the crime was abnormal, then the automatism, insanity and diminished responsibility play a significant role (Jiao, at, el 2016). The reason behind same is it is proven that the person while committing the offence was mentally unwell thus can’t be punished for same.
Automatism refers as a state of the unconscious behaviour of the person, in which the working or the activities of the mind generate automatically, which does not consist of the mental and the emotional process (Shaw, 2015). In the term, unconscious includes automatic reaction, habits, feelings and so on. Automatism may be due to the certain medication, condition of the nervous system (Shiffrin, and Schneider, 2016). Generally, the automatism is not regarded as a criminal offence, due to the unconscious state of the person, the activity of the person leads to the unlawful activity (Chapman, and MacLean, 2015). According to the law, normally voluntary act or the responsible behaviour is required to prove the actusreus in crime. Since the actusreus in criminal law includes all the essential elements of how the crime, however, it excludes the state of mind of the offender.Moreover, intoxication is not included in the automation even if it is involuntary. Automatism is generally based on the insane automatism (Chapman, 2015).
Automatism
Causation simply relates conduct to an outcome. Factual causation is recognized by exercising the But-for test. However, Legal causation is a bit critical. The proximate basis law could be implemented. For instance, an individual could quarrel that if a mechanic did not manufacture a car, manslaughter would not have occurred. Prevailing effects could also eliminate liability. Further, if someone is hurt by a gunshot and then they are hit by lightning in an ambulance, individual can quarrel the shooter is responsible utilising the but-for test. Though, lawfully the shooter will not be liable for harm sustained by lightning clout.
There is a difference between the insane automatism and the non-insane automatism. Although the insane automatism and the non-insane automatism is based on the involuntary activities of the person, the non-insane automatism is impacted by the external factors,and the insane automatism is impacted by the internal factors (Rumbold, and Wasik, 2015). If the offender proves that crimes have been occurred due to the non-insane automatism, then all the criminal liability imposed on him will be discharged. Further for proving the non-insane automatism three elements must exist which are activities of the person occurred unintentionally from the external sources, the activity not self-prompted and the actions are fully involuntary (Brown, 2018).
Intention of the crime is significant variant since it is the mens rea requisite for serious crimes, comprising murder. Further, the same is bifurcated in two types, direct intent and oblique intent. Further, direct intent is comparatively straightforward and is linked to the defendant’s endeavour. On the other hand oblique intent is where defendant did not wants the effects, but they knew they were definite to take place.
On the other hand, insanity is applied in the aspect of the legal term and not the medical term. A person can be protected by insanity in a special judgement of ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’. The M’Naghten Rules (1843) defines the defence of insanity, which was built by the houses of the lord. These rules stated the four essential elements which are as follows-
- Every person is considered as a sane unless any contradiction is ascertained. In other words, it can be said that it has to prove by the defence that the offender was insane.
- There must be the existence a defect of reason which leads to the influence the offender,and for this reason, offender totally deprived for a reason.
- The reason for the defect must be generated from the disease of the mind, which diminished the mental function of the offender. Here the term disease of the mind is not the medical term; it is the legal term which is based on the question of law (Koskela, Pettitt and Drennan, 2015).
- The last element of the insanity is the offender does not have any knowledge about the activities what he was undertaking and even if he knows about the activity which was undertaken by him, but he was not aware with why it was wrong.
In this, the offender takes the burden to prove the chances that he/she insane at the time of commitment of the crime according to the above-described test. If the crime was as per the test, then the offender is found as not guilty by reason of insanity, which is also known as the special verdict. The court may follow the various methods to deal with the special verdict if the person is found not guilty by reason of insanity (Slobogin, 2016).
Causation
Further, under the criminal law, the judge can make the number of order as per their wish in respect of the person who positively pleads insanity. The orders are described below-
- The judge can make the order for the entire discharge of the person.
- The judge can make the order to person for the treatment,and the built the control over him.
- The judge can make the order to make a custody
- If the person committed the crime related to the murder, then the judge can make the order to the offender to confess in a secure hospital (Slobogin, 2018).
Diminished responsibility refers as a probable defence by the excuse in which offender contented that if they ruined the law, but also they should not be considered as a criminally liable because at the time of the activity their mental function is not properly working or the mental function was reduced (Manninen, 2018). The doctrine of diminished responsibility offers an alleviating defence in the cases where the extent of the mental function or the mental defect is not as to eliminate the criminal liability totally. This is mostly related tothe emphasis on the murder case, which needs the evidence of the mental state of the respondent. In the situation where the court determines that the offender is not capable of contemplation, however, due to the capacity of the offender from his activity the wrongfulness emerged then the court may levy the less severe penalty on the person (Reed, 2016).
Further, recklessness is specified as forecasting that a specific type of impairment might be done, but going on to do it anyhow. In addition there is also another way of identifying recklessness, defined in R v Cunningham. This time reckless is related to an act which generates apparent risk or harm along with giving no idea of their probably being a risk, in identifying risk, they continue to do it anyhow.
On the other hand, if the offender can successfully prove that due to the mental condition, the activity leads to the criminal offence by him then the person will be found guilty of the Manslaughter is spite of murder (Dinstein, 2017). Manslaughter is the criteria in the criminal law, in which the lesser penalty is imposed on the person as compared with the penalty which is charged in case of the murder. For instance, if the lawyer of the person proved that person was suffering from Asperger Syndrome, which can provide a diminished responsibility defence (Maloff, 2018).
On the basis of the above analysis, it has been seen that all the three such as automatism, insanity and the diminished responsibility plays a significant role at the time of the commission of a crimeby the person and the person was suffering from any kind of abnormality. Moreover, automatism, insanity and the diminished responsibility all the three factors are decided on the basis of abnormality, but the definition of the abnormality in all three elements is different. Since in the automatism, the person did not have any control over the body at the time of the crime happen and it was not due to the fault by the person but due to the lack of control over the body, thus the person may ask for not guilty (Dobrucká, 2018). Further, in the automatism, there is no special verdict by the court.The defence of automatism is very closely connected with the insanity. Lack of control over the body may be due to the internal factor such as the body of the person is not properly working or may be due to the external factor such as depression in mind. If the person did not exercise proper control over the body due to the internal factors, then this leads to the insanity,and the special verdict will be applied. Moreover lack of control due to the external factor classified as sanity, which leads to the simple acquittal.Further, the diminished responsibility is generally applicable in case of the murder. Diminished responsibility is based on the recognized medical condition of the person. Further, the diminished responsibility is accepted only on the basis of the clear evidence of the mental disorder (Griffith, 2015).
Insane and Non-Insane Automatism
Conclusion
On the basis of the above analysis, it can be concluded that abnormality of the mind assists in the mitigation of the criminal liability of the person. Defence arises when all the conditions of committing a crime are not present. In this aspect, the automatism, insanity and diminished responsibility play a great role in concluding the decision relating to an offence. All the three terms are interconnected with each other since they all depend on the abnormality of mind however there scope and application are different to some aspect.
References
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