Actus Reas and Men Rea

Actus Reus and Mens Rea Actus reus and mens rea be twain of the five elements of a crime that the pursuance may hold back to levy to get a reliance in a unlawful contingency. Actus reus is the whitlow act. Mens rea is the intent to commit the crime. In general, the to a greater extent serious a crime is, the more important it is for the prosecution to prove that some(prenominal) a turn act was committed and that there was malefactor intent. These more serious crimes are excessively cognise as choose crimes. Not surprisingly, gestate crimes involve the proof of criminal conduct. iniquitous conduct is often confused with criminal acts.The distinction is that criminal conduct involves two actus reus and mens rea, whereas a criminal act single involves actus reus. In the most frightening of crimes, such as criminal homicide, three more elements of crime moldiness be proven concurrence, attendant circumstances and a bad result. Actus reus and mens rea are important beca use both elements are necessary to get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal faux pas (Samaha, 2008, chap. 3). In order to qualify as actus reus, the act mustiness be deemed a bodily movement that was voluntary.The reason for this is that the law is intend to punish people who meant to commit the act or can be blamed for the act. Only then are they responsible for the criminal acts they commit. Criminal law does non intend to punish people who are not responsible for the acts they committed. The problem is that most criminal codes provide vague descriptions of what a voluntary act is. Many times, the definition leads to be inferred by looking at the list of exceptions (involuntary acts) to voluntary acts. An appeal in causal agent of Brown v.State centered around whether the jury should be given unique(predicate) instructions by the judge on how to ascertain whether an act was voluntary. The defendant in that case, Alfred Brown, was bumped with a moholding wa s that the defendant was entitled to have the jury picture the voluntariness of his acts (Samaha, 2008, chap. 3). In order to have Mens Rea, one of two kinds of fracture film to be established subjective or objective fault. Subjective fault is more easily identifiable. Subject fault is having a bad mind, or doing something that you knew to be rail at.Objective fault does not involve a purposeful or conscious bad mind. Objective fault involves establishing that the act should have been known to be wrong by the average person. In the appeal of the case of State v. Stark, the defendant, Calvin Stark, challenged a second degree assault conviction on the grounds that he did not intend to inflict bodily slander by having unprotected sex after he was knowingly hu valet de chambre immunodeficiency virus positive. Mr. Starks appeal was on the grounds that subjective fault could not be established for the crime he was alleged to have committed.Mr. Starks lost the appeal in large part bec ause objective fault was undeniably map in this case since the average person knows that HIV can be passed to an some other person by having unprotected sex (Samaha, 2008, chap. 4). Good Samaritan regulation and American Bystander get The Good Samaritan Rule and the American Bystander Rule both address the requirements of what a person has to do if they are witnessing and incident where a situation requires assistance. at that place are really no other similarities amidst these rules.The Good Samaritan Rule is only used in a a couple of(prenominal) jurisdictions. This rule makes a person licitly responsible to either assister or scratch for aid oneself when a person is in need. In contrast, the American Bystander Rule states that there is no legal job to help somebody in need, even if it the bystander is risking nothing by helping someone or calling for help. Even in cases where it is clearly morally wrong to stand by and watch someone suffer, the bystander is not violat ing any criminal law by doing nothing (Samaha, 2008, p. 91). In the case of Commonwealth v.Pestinakas, the defendants, Helen and Walter Pestinakas were convicted of troika degree murder in Pennsylvania for neglecting to veneration for an elderly man who was terminally ill. In the appeal to this case, the judgments of sentence (five to ten years in prison for each defendant) were upheld because the romance ruled that there was a legally binding oral contract in place for the Pestinakases to provide care for the victim, Joseph Kly. The Good Samaritan Rule does not apply in Pennsylvania and the American Bystander Rule does apply.The dissenting opinion was interesting in that it was pointed out that the legislature may not have intended for a contractual duty to be a duty imposed by law. If indeed that were not the intent of the legislature, then the Pestinakases may very well have won their appeal based on the American Bystander Rule. Although neglecting an elderly man term servi ng as his caretaker is probably morally wrong in the eye of most, the American Bystander Rule would have protected the Pestinakases from legal prosecution (Samaha, 2008, p. 92-93). In the case of State v.Kuntz, the defendant, Bonnie Kuntz stabbed her boyfriend, Warren Becker, and then did not call for help, so he bled to death. In addition to being convicted of negligent homicide, the defendant was also charged with a separate crime for failure to impeach for medical aid. Ms. Kuntz appealed the latter conviction with the American Bystander Rule as her basis. There are some exceptions to the American Bystander Rule that do make a bystander criminally liable for a failure to act. In the opinion of the court, this case met one of those exceptions, since Ms.Kuntz had a duty to summon for help because she created the peril. In other words, if you mortally wound someone, you are criminally liable if you dont summon for aid, notwithstanding the American Bystander Rule (http//www. soc. umn . edu). The Good Samaritan Rule is also not always so cut and dry. Although the rule requires that you help someone in need or summon for help, alone a recent ruling, Van Horn v. Watson, held that a state statute only protects people who attempt to provide medical care to someone who take it.In Van Horn v. Watson, court held that the co-defendant, Lisa Torti was held liable for rendering the defendant, Alexandra Van Horn, sick after pulling Van Horn from a vehicle that Torti scene was going to explode (Miller, 2009). Although this was not a criminal case, this shows that the Good Samaritan Rule does not provide protection against every scenario of helping a victim in need, just as the American Bystander Rule does not the bystander from needing to help or summon for help for a person in need.Although the rules front to be opposites, each has exceptions that make them more similar. Constructive and Actual obstinance Constructive possession is when someone has jibe of a banned nerve, but it is not on his/her person. In other words, it may be in or on something he/she owns, such as a vehicle, a place they live, such as their house, or another region he/she controls, such as his/her office. Actual possession is when someone has physical control of the banned substance. In other words in might be in their shoe.Constructive and active possession both need to meet the two aspects of possession. In order to constitute possession as a criminal act, there needs to be both control of the items and awareness of the control. The chief(prenominal) difference between shaping and active possession is that with active possession, the substance is piece on the person, whereas with constructive possession, the substance is found in an area in which the person is responsible (Samaha, 2008, p. 97). The case of Miller v.State provides a beloved discussion in the courts opinion on constructive possession. In that case, a passenger in a car was convicted of possession of ganja and cocaine. The defendant, James Luther Miller, appealed the case on the grounds that he did not knowingly possess the drugs. Other passengers in the car were smoking ganja and they had crack cocaine stashed in the car. In the appeal, the court affirmed the marijuana possession conviction and reversed and dismissed the cocaine possession conviction.According to the court opinion, in order to constitute constructive possession in a case involving multiple occupants in an automobile, there are several things that need to be considered. These factors include whether the drugs were in plain view of the impeach, whether they were found on the accused, whether they were in close proximity to the accused, whether the accused is the owner of the car and whether the accused acted suspiciously.In this case, many of these factors were probably true in the case of the marijuana, but no(prenominal) of them were definitively true in the case of the cocaine. In the case of the cocaine, the court found that Mr. Miller did not have knowing possession of the cocaine and sort of had mere possession. Only Montana and Washington do not require knowing possession to charge someone with criminal possession. Since this case was in Arkansas, the appeal was successful for Mr.Miller on the cocaine possession charge (Samaha, 2008, pp. 97-98). References Did she have a legal duty to report or intervene? Retrieved from http//www. soc. umn. edu/samaha/cases/state_v_kuntz_omission. htm. Miller, C. (2009, January 14). Calif. lawmakers squawk to rescue good samaritans in wake of court ruling. The Recorder. Retrieved from http//www. law. com/jsp/article. jsp? id=1202427434865&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1. Samaha, J. (2008). Criminal Law. (9th ed. , chap. 3-4). Belmont, CA Thomson Learning, Inc.