Ingredients of a Crime

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 429.

It is generally agreed that the essential elements of a crime are voluntary action or failure to act and a certain state of mind. Failure to act includes not doing something an individual is required to do by law, such as file an income tax form or get a driver's license before operating an automobile.

The mental element in a crime is that the person committing it usually acts purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently. There are, however, exceptions. Bigamy, for instance, may be committed unintentionally when both people believe that they are free to marry but one party has not yet actually received a divorce.

It has long been said that ignorance of the law is no excuse, and criminal law systems generally recognize this principle. It is no defense for a person to say he was unaware that what he did was against the law. Behind this is the supposition that criminal acts may be recognized as harmful and immoral by any reasonable adult. By contrast most countries recognize that an individual who acts in ignorance of the facts of his action is not criminally responsible. Hence, someone who takes another person's goods, believing them to be his own, has not committed larceny because he lacks intent to steal. Any inconvenience he has caused the other person may, however, be a matter taken up in civil law.

It is generally recognized that persons suffering from mental defects are not responsible for their actions. Much controversy has arisen over the appropriate tests for determining responsibility in such cases. The insanity defense has come under close scrutiny in legal circles particularly since the attempted assassination of United States President Ronald Reagan in March 1981. The individual who committed the offense was found not guilty by reason of insanity and put in a mental institution. Since that time some states have revised their insanity-plea laws to allow for verdicts of “guilty, but insane,” instead of “not guilty on account of insanity”.

In most countries being drunk is not treated as a mental incapacity. Russian law is especially hard on those who have committed offences while under the influence of alcohol. In other nations, by contrast, such offenses have been dealt with relatively lightly.

The law recognizes that the use of even deadly force may be justified under some circumstances. Such special circumstances include cases of self-defense, including the use of force in defense of others, by law-enforcement agents, or in defense of property.