CRIMINAL LAW
LECTURE 1
What is Criminal Law?
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It regulates social conduct and proscribes
threatening, harming, or otherwise endangering the health, safety, and moral welfare of people. It
includes the punishment of people who violate these laws.
Moreover, criminal law:

Defines crime and its elements;

Provides proportional punishment for the crime;
Classifying Criminal Law
Crimes ‘mala in se’ - Acts which are wrong in themselves. The conduct is unlawful because the
transaction or contact between people is unnatural or immoral. Examples include murder, rape,
burglary, and so forth.
Crimes ‘mala prohibita’ - Acts which are wrong because prohibited. The conduct is unlawful
because it infringes on other's rights or just because it is prohibited. Examples include drunk
driving, gambling, and so forth.
Crimes ‘distinguished from torts’ - Victims can sue criminals in tort action, and double jeopardy
does not prohibit tort and criminal action for the same conduct. Tort Law grew out of Criminal
Law, and involves the concepts of fault and liability but does not carry the social condemnation of
Criminal Law. That's why a different standard of proof exists for torts. Examples include libel,
slander, trespass, wrongful death, and so forth
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Elements of a Crime:
According to at least one legal scholar (Hall, 1949), any Crime has 7 elements, which I will first
list, and then go into detail by number. By definition, a crime is any:
1. legally proscribed (the concept of Legality)
2. human conduct (the concept of Actus Reus)
3. causative (the concept of Causation)
4. of a given harm (the concept of Social Harm)
5. which coincides with (the concept of Concurrence)
6. a blameworthy frame of mind (the concept of Mens Rea)
7. for which punishment is provided. (the concept of Punishment)
Legality
The concept of legality incorporates the following principles:

nullum crimen sine poena - no crime without punishment

nulla poena sine lege - no punishment without law
Actus reus
This is the Latin term for the ‘guilty act.’ This, along with mens rea produces criminal liability.
The terms actus reus and mens rea developed in English Law and are derived from the principle
stated by Edward Coke, namely, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means: ‘an act does
not make a person guilty unless (their) mind is also guilty;’ hence, the general test of guilt is one
that requires proof of fault, culpability or blameworthiness both in behaviour and mind.
Omission:
Voluntariness includes omission, for implicit in omission is that the actor voluntarily chose to not
perform a bodily movement and, consequently, caused an injury. The purposeful, reckless, or
negligent absence of an action is considered a voluntary action and fulfills the voluntary
requirement of actus reus
Voluntariness:
For conduct to constitute an actus reus, it must be engaged in voluntarily.
Reflect or convulsion:
generally, if, during an uncontrollable flailing caused by a sudden paroxysmal episode, such as that
produced by an epileptic seizure, a person strikes another, that person will not be criminally liable
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for the injuries sustained by the other person. However, if prior to the assault on another, the seized
individual was engaging in conduct that he knew to be dangerous given a previous history of
seizures, then he is culpable for any injuries resulting from the seizure. For example, in People v.
Decina (1956), the defendant, Emil Decina, appealed a conviction under § 1053-a of the New York
Penal Code. On March 14, 1955, Decina suffered a serious seizure while operating a motor vehicle.
He swerved wildly through the streets and struck a group of school girls, killing four of them. On
direct examination, Decina's physician testified that Decina informed him that prior to the accident
"he noticed a jerking of his right hand" and recounted his extensive history of seizures, a
consequence of brain damage from an automobile accident at age seven. Decina argued, that he had
not engaged in criminal conduct because he did not voluntarily strike the school girls. The New
York Court of Appeals disagreed and held that since the defendant knew he was susceptible to a
seizure at any time without warning and decided to operate a motor vehicle on a public highway
anyway, he was guilty of the offense. The Court found that ‘to hold otherwise would be to say that
a man may freely indulge himself in liquor in the same hope that it will not affect his driving, and if
it later develops that ensuing intoxication causes dangerous and reckless driving resulting in death,
his unconsciousness or involuntariness at that time would relieve him from prosecution.’
Unconsciousness or sleep
In Hill v Baxter (1958), Kilmuir, LC, articulated the necessity of eliminating automatism, defined
as "the existence in any person of behaviour of which he is unaware and over which he has no
conscious control,"[13] in proving the voluntariness of the actus reus.
Normally the presumption of mental capacity is sufficient to prove that he acted consciously and
voluntarily and the prosecution need go no further. But, if after considering evidence properly left
them by the judge, the jury are left in real doubt whether or not the accused acted in a state of
automatism...they should acquit because the necessary mens rea—if indeed the actus reus—has not
been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, a person suffering from sleep walking, epilepsy or
other convulsive or reflexive disorder, who kills another, steals another's property, or engages in
other facially criminal conduct, may not have committed an actus reus, for such conduct may have
been elicited unconsciously, and, one who engages in what would otherwise be criminal conduct is
not guilty of a crime if he does so in a state of unconsciousness.
Omission - Voluntariness
Voluntariness includes omission, for implicit in omission is that the actor voluntarily chose to not
behave in a particular way and consequently, caused an injury. The purposeful, reckless, or
negligent absence of an action is considered a voluntary action and fulfills the voluntary
requirement of actus reus.
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Mens Rea
Mens is the Latin phrase for ‘guilty mind.’
Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea - ‘the act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty.’
Thus there must be an actus reus, or ‘guilty act,’ accompanied by some level of mens rea to
constitute the crime with which the defendant is charged.
The actus reus and mens rea of homicide in a modern criminal statute can be considered as follows:

actus reus: any conduct resulting in the death of another individual;

mens rea: intent or knowledge that the conduct would result in the death.
Causation:
Causation is the ‘causal relationship between conduct and result.’ That is to say that causation
provides a means of connecting conduct with a resulting effect, typically an injury
The most important types of causes in Criminal Law are "causes in fact" (also called direct causes),
proximate causes (also called legal causes), intervening causes, and superceding causes. Each of
these have special rules or tests designed for them:
Direct cause
The but for test -- The accused's act will be the cause in fact of a result if, but
for the accused's act, the result would not have occured.
Proximate cause
The foreseeability test -- If it is foreseeable that the resulting harm might occur,
then the person doing the original criminal act is responsible for the
consequences.
Intervening cause
The general rule is that the accused will remain responsible for the original
criminal act even if there are intervening causes between the actus reus and
actual injury.
The general rule is that the chain of causation is broken, and the accused is not
Superceding cause responsible, if there is a superceding cause so unforeseen and unpredictable
that it would not be fair to hold the original actor to blame.
Strict Liability:
Standard for liability – a person is legally responsible for the effects of his/her act/omission
regardless of culpability (fault – typically the presence of mens rea).
Strict liability often applies to vehicular traffic offenses. In a speeding case, for example, whether
the defendant knew that the posted speed limit was being exceeded is irrelevant. The prosecutor
would need to prove only that the defendant was operating the vehicle in excess of the speed limit.
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