The Purpose of Criminal Law
Oscar Pistorius
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTc5UrfEiTg
Criminal Law
 Criminal law is a set of rules to prohibit and punish acts that injure individuals as well as
society as a whole.
 In order for a crime to be criminal, there must be a public dimension to it. Criminals are
prosecuted by the state on behalf of the public, or all of us.
 The main purpose of criminal law is to control and prevent conduct that may be offensive
or potentially harmful
Need for Criminal Law
 Keep order in society
 Offers penalties for crimes help deter
 Does little to compensate victims
 Public wants:
 criminal law should protect people and property
 Some want harsh penalties to discourage potential offenders or to punish
wrongdoers
 Some want rehabilitation
Criminal Actions
 Criminal actions have four conditions that must exist in order for an act to be considered
criminal. They are:
 the actions must harm other people;
 the actions must violate the basic values of society;
 using the law to deal with the action must not violate the basic values of society;
and
 criminal law can make a significant contribution to resolving the problem.
 The punishments for criminal law can be divided into three general areas of lawmaking:
 the protection of people,
 the protection of property, and the protection of moral norms of a society
The Criminal Code of Canada
 Criminal Code is the main source of criminal law in Canada
 Other Criminal offences are listed in statutes passed by Parliament (Controlled
Drugs and Substances Act)
 Describes offences that are considered crimes, as well as punishments for
crime
 Judiciary (judges and courts)
 interpret the criminal laws and apply them to individual cases
 Determines if a law trespasses upon citizen’s rights as outline in the Charter
 Determine and follow precedence
Elements of a crime
1. Actus Reus
 Refers to “guilty act”
 The physical act involved in commission of offense
 The actus reus of a criminal offense is found in its criminal code definition
 Eg. s. 265 of the Criminal Code defines assault:
 A person commits assault when
 Without the consent of another person, he applies force intentionally to that
person, either directly or indirectly
 For actus reus, a person must actually hit another person
 To prove actus reus, the Crown would have to demonstrate that
(a) there was no consent
(b) force was applied
Exception: Automatism and Actus Reus
 Actus Reus of a criminal act must be voluntary
 If someone shoots someone while sleep walking, he may not be criminally liable
 E.g. Kenneth Parks case 1992- The Supreme Court upheld the acquittal of Parks
whose defense was that he was sleepwalking when he stabbed his mother in law
to death
 His defense was that he acted involuntarily (automatism)
Other examples:
 Broome v Perkins [1987]
The defendant had driven eratically while suffering from hypo-glycaemia (low blood sugar level
caused by an excess of insulin in the bloodstream), but was convicted of driving without due care
and attention because of evidence that from time to time he had exercised conscious control over
his car, veering away from other vehicles so as to avoid a collision, braking violently, and so on.
 R v Antoniuk (1995) The defendant was drowsy with drink and her lover found her
unconscious on her living-room floor. The victim then hauled her to bed, her head
banging on the stairs, and raped her. The defendant went to the kitchen and returned with
a knife and stabbed her lover. The defendant argued that she was not responsible for her
actions as she had been suffering from automatism from the shock of being raped. At
Kingston Crown Court the trial judge said "If her amnesia is real, because of automatism,
then she is not to be convicted". The jury found her not guilty of wounding charges.
2. Mens Rea
 Refers to having a “guilty mind.”
 Phrase infers moral guilt and the accused knowing they did something wrong
 To meet the legal definition of a crime, the Crown must prove an act was done with
criminal intent OR knowledge that what he/she did was against the law
A. INTENT
 Intent, in the legal sense, means to carry out and act with intent, with knowledge, or by
being reckless or wilfully blind to the consequences of an act.
 E.g. If John threw a knife up in the air, which accidently killed Luke, would
Johnny likely be guilty of manslaugher?
 Yes, because you cannot be “wilfully blind” to the consequences of your actions
General vs. Specific Intent
I. General intent
 Means to commit a wrongful act for its own sake, with no other purpose or motive
 Dave punches Luke because he is angry. Dave has general intent to
commit assault.
 For mens rea to be proven, all that needs to be done is to show that Dave
punched Luke
 Greg voluntarily gets drunk at a bar and kills Ted. Greg has never met Ted before, and
witnesses say that Ted was heavily insulting Greg; furthermore, Greg is so drunk that he
has absolutely no memory of these events, and appeared to have very little control over
his body. Nevertheless, Greg somehow manages to put Ted's head through a window,
which results in Ted bleeding to death.
 Greg is clearly not guilty of first degree murder, but neither is he innocent of Ted's death.
He will probably be found guilty of negligent homicide, because his voluntary state
of intoxication placed him in a generally culpable mental state in which "general intent"
satisfies the mens rea requirement
II. Specific Intent
 Involves intent in addition to the general intent to commit the crime
 It is committing one wrongful act to accomplish another
 E.g Burglary is the breaking and entering of a dwelling-house with intent to
commit an indictable offense. The break and enter requires general intent, the
intent to commit an indictable offense requires specific intent
 In order to prove burglary, the Crown not only has to show that a person broke
into a house, but also had the specific intent of stealing.
B. MOTIVE
 Intent refers to the state of mind with which an act is done or not done
 Motive is what prompts a person to commit an act or not act
 If a person kills her mother to receive an inheritance, the inheritance is motive.
This does not establish state of mind to commit murder
 Crown must prove intent by showing killing was planned and deliberate
C. KNOWLEDGE
 In order to have the requisite mens rea to commit a crime, a person must have some
knowledge of the actus reus of the crime
 Eg. S 268 1 (a) of the Criminal Code states that “Everyone who, knowing that a
document is forged, uses, deals, or acts upon it” is guilty of circulating a forged
document
 To establish guilt, the Crown only has to prove that the person knew the document was
forged.... Nothing about intent.
D. RECKLESSNESS AND WILFUL BLINDNESS
 Crown can also establish mens rea by proving accused acted reckless.
 Recklessness
 Usually involves taking an unjustifiable risk that a reasonable person
would not take
 Eg. recklessly shooting a pellet gun into a crowd. The accused may not
have tried to hurt someone, but they should have been able to foresee harm
 Willful blindness
 Suspects a criminal outcome but does not ask the questions to confirm
 Eg. transporting something illegal such as drugs in a trunk