Mental Elements In Criminal Justice Research Paper

3. Development of mental elements in criminal justice system

In almost all legal system the individual who is liable for committing a crime, the amount of punishment depends upon certain conditions among which mental condition of the accused at the time of committing the offence plays an important role in this regards.

The liability to conviction of an individual depends not only on his giving done some outward acts which the law forbids, but on his having done them in a certain frame of mind or with a certain will. These are known as ‘mental elements’ in criminal responsibility. That is, while acting in a particular way one intended certain consequences or might foresaw the likeliness of those consequences. Therefore an act in order to

Equivalent Norman-French is employed in the Mirror where it is said “….there can be no crime or sin without a corrupt will…” The first systematic treatment of mens rea was provided by Hale. According to him penal liability was based on “two great faculties, understanding and liberty of will” No one incurs penal liability for doing an act “without intention of any bodily harm to any person”. Malice in fact “has become a deliberate intention of doing some corporal harm to the person of another. Hall posits that: “the consent of the will is that, which renders human actions either commendable or culpable…” Mens rea consists of two elements. One is the intent to do an act and second knowledge of the circumstances that makes that act a criminal offence. Thus mens rea means the intention to do a wrong act, with concomitant knowledge of the material facts. In sum, the essential meaning of mens rea i.e. that represented in the intentional doing of a morally wrong act, implying concomitant knowledge of the material facts, has persisted for centuries. But the concept of mens rea has changed with the advance of the law and morals in

This maxim still applies in common law offences under the earlier statutes but it has no general application in case of modern statutory offences and these statutes are regarded themselves to be prescribing the mental element which is prerequisite to a conviction. However, the above generalization does not hold good now. The eclipse of the doctrine of mens rea might be visible in certain discussions of the courts but the doctrine itself seems to have been revived with greater vigour after a temporary eclipse as may be witnessed from the observations of Lord Goddard,