For a crime to occur there has to be two main components for the negative action to be considered a criminal offense; the actus reus and the mens rea. These elements of crime symbolize the distinct functions that a criminal has to execute in order to be prosecuted. The act of battering another person is not sufficient evidence for the defendant to be found guilty, but the malicious intent to assault another person has to go hand in hand with the physical action. Self-defense can defy the mens rea element in order to classify such action as a crime. In a non-lethal self-defense, the defendant has the right to strike back if he or she feels in danger of the situation and has the duty to flee the scene. A nail file can be intimidating to anyone …show more content…
Nail files are pointy and can cause some serious harm, especially on the body’s soft and accessible areas such as the neck, face, and groin area. Referring to the case scenario, the male and his partner felt threatened by the intoxicated female, and decided to flee the nightclub. The male felt the need to hit the intoxicated female so that he and his partner could leave the nightclub safely with no persecution. If a proper execution of the intoxicated woman’s nail file into the man’s eye or his partner’s eye would have been completed, then the intoxicated woman could have cause severe harm or possible fatality to either the man and his partner or both. The intoxicated woman could not pled innocent to the cause of her action (stabbing someone with the nail file) in the excuse that she was intoxicated and not having full control of her own mental capability because she had voluntarily attended the nightclub with the intent of getting intoxicated. Even though the intoxicated woman does not strike anybody with nail file, she still had the …show more content…
None of them was engaging on illegal activity until the situation between the intoxicated woman and the couple got hectic, and the intoxicated woman decided to withdraw a nail file with the intent of harm. The male felt the need to stop the intoxicated woman from her attempted aggravated assault, which involves the display of a weapon. Aggravated assault is a felony, therefore; the action of the male deciding to go “force with force” is justified in the premise that he has the right to defend himself with his bodily force. It is smart on his part to use a force that can cause less harm than what the intoxicated woman’s force could have caused to him; the use of a less harmful force in comparison to the aggressor’s weapon can be justified as self-defense. Applying the stand-your-ground law would have enabled the male to keep fighting until he felt safe, since he had no need to leave the nightclub; most likely a couple of more punches in her stomach and the disarmament of the nail file would have been sufficient. The male did not “stand his ground” because he decided to leave the nightclub, yet he did act in
The use of reasonable force to protect oneself or members of the family from bodily harm from the attack of an aggressor, if defender has reason to believe He/She/is/are in danger. Self-defense is a common defense by a person accused of assault battery
On March 12, 2012 Bill Lee, the Chief of Police for Sanford Florida, explained Zimmerman had not been arrested because the police found no evidence to refute Zimmerman’s self-defense claim (Timeline of events: Trayvon Martin shooting case). Then the media decided to bully the state of Florida into bringing Florida by influencing public opinion. One of the ways the media achieved this was by making it seem like the reason there was no evidence to refute Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense, and Zimmerman’s eventual acquittal, was because of the controversial law in several states, including Florida, known as “Stand-Your Ground.”
Self-defense is not something that should be taken lightly. Its dictionary definition is, “the act of defending one's person when physically
These crimes (Aggravated assault, Non-Negligent/Negligent Homicide) are serious crimes in America and throughout other countries, but in America you would face time in prison for the crime you committed. You have aggravated assault which is crime that it an attempt to cause serious bodily injury to another or it is consider purposely knowingly or recklessly harm to the value of a human life. Then you have negligent homicide which is a crime that it much more less intent, but can be charge if the person causes death towards another through criminal negligence. Last of we Non-Negligent homicide which is way different from Negligent homicide, but it is a willful (non-negligent) killing of one human by another. Out of all these crimes each
The four criminal law elements of self-defense are nonaggressor, necessity, proportionality, and reasonable belief. Nonaggressor is when the defender did not in any way provoke or stray an attack. When it comes to self-defense it is only available when it comes to unprovoked attacks. If one provokes someone they cannot use self-defense to defend themselves from the attack because they provoked it. However there is one exception and that is the withdrawal exception. The withdrawal exception is when the initial aggressor withdrawals completely from the attack they provoked they can defend themselves against their initial victims. An example of nonaggressor self-defense is Melody hanging out at the bar by herself and Samantha comes up to her trying
Assault is an intentional or reckless act that causes someone to put in fear of immediate physical harm, e.g. pointing a gun at the claimant by the defendant, the claimant need not know if the gun is real one. Assault must be intentional, direct and immediate. Battery is the intentional or reckless application of physical force to another person. While, false imprisonment is an unlawful restriction of the claimant’s freedom of movement by the defendant.
suddenly jumps in front of her and drags her into an alley. The attacker strikes (A) and rips her clothes. Fortunately, (A) hits the attacker with a rock and runs to safety. The man’s actions do not amount to assault, they amount to a battery as he dragged the woman to an alley, stroke her, and ripped her clothes off with the intent of causing her harm. The acts of the woman are a measure of self-defense, and she cannot be held accountable for the infliction she may have induced to the man. If the man just followed her without having any physical contact with her, his actions would have constituted to assault, as he would inflict fear into the
A suspect can be convicted of many different crimes, but the crimes that are the most interesting are called inchoate offenses. An inchoate offense is a type of crime done by taking a illegal step to the commission of another crime. The inchoate offenses are attempt, solicitation, and conspiracy ("Inchoate offense | Wex Legal Dictionary / Encyclopedia | LII / Legal Information Institute", n.d.). Solicitation is one of bottom inchoate offenses, meaning that it does not take much for a suspect to be found guilty of solicitation. Prosecutors must be able to prove two things to be effective in convicting a suspect of solicitation ("Criminal Solicitation Law & Legal Definition", n.d.). The first thing a prosecutor must prove is that a person commands another person to commit a crime. The second thing a prosecutor must prove is that the person who is commanded to commit the crime will actual commit the crime so there will need to be a specific intent ("Criminal Solicitation Law & Legal Definition", n.d.). When being charged with solicitation the other person can be charged with conspiracy. “Conspiracy is a more serious charge than solicitation as well, so if the other person does agree, the individual soliciting the crime will likely be charged with conspiracy rather than solicitation” ("Criminal Solicitation Law & Legal Definition", n.d.).
Working through The Full Code Test within, The Code for Crown Prosecutors enables the conclusion to be reached as to whether Harry should be charged in accordance with s47 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, for assault occasioning actual bodily harm ('ABH'). For conviction, prosecutors would demonstrate the actus reus and mens rea of ABH, in this case that Harry assaulted and caused the actual bodily harm to Rob and reckless or intended the assault.
There are many different aspects of criminal justice policy. One in particular is the different theories of crime and how they affect the criminal justice system. The Classical School of criminology is a theory about evolving from a capital punishment type of view to more humane ways of punishing people. Positivist criminology is maintaining the control of human behavior and criminal behavior. They did this through three different categories of Biological studies, which are five methodologies of crime that were mainly focused on biological theories, Psychological theories, which contains four separate theories, and the Sociological theories, which also includes four different methods of explaining why crime exists. The last theory is about Critical criminology. Their goal was to transform society in a way that would liberate and empower subordinate groups of individuals.
The world will always be full of crime, thus it is necessary for scientist to grow along with the gruesome and increasing amount of violations. Due to this it sparked scientist to develop crime theories in which emerged to explain why crime is caused by individuals. Some of the few theories that have advanced over the past century and provided many answers to why crimes are committed are biological theories, psychological theories and learning theories. These theories provide an insight to its first use and change in order to provide answers.
A defence in criminal law arises when conditions exist to negate specific elements of the crime: the actus reus when actions are involuntary, the mens rea when the defendant is unaware of the significance of their conduct, or both. These defences will mitigate or eliminate liability from a criminal offence. Insanity, automatism and diminished responsibility are examples of said defences. They each share characteristics but can be distinguished in their scope and application.
“A person 's use of physical force upon another person is justifiable if the person in good faith withdraws from the encounter and effectively communicates to the other person his or her purpose to withdraw from the encounter; and the other person continues or threatens to continue the use of unlawful physical force; or the physical force involved is the product of a combat by agreement not authorized by
What is street crime? According to McDonald and Balkin (1983) define street crime as “personal contact criminal victimization (p.419)”. As we read this article it argues from different viewpoint that street justice can be explained from different theoretical perspectives. There are three theoretical perspectives that examines the role of justice as a means of informal social control and as a reactionary process to dynamics of social strain and subcultural demands. This theoretical analysis is then applied to concepts of justice, including retributive, distributive, restorative, and procedural. The derived street justice paradigm incorporates these various forms of justice as they are linked with cultural imperatives associated with street culture and
Actus reus, mens rea…A guilty crime, a guilty mind. These words ring true for and crime, whether it is a simple misdemeanor, or as bad as a felony. Crimes can be any manner of things, from crimes against the person to crimes against property and against justice. The law has the extent of inchoate offenses, or “planning” to do a crime. These include an attempt at serious crime, conspiracy, incitement, or solicitation of services. Each of these is viewed differently in the eyes of the public and the eyes of those who interpret the law. In the United States, crime was at one of the highest rates in the world in the 1990’s, but has since decreased steadily. However, through massive amounts of mainstream media, the public is now far more aware of crime that does happen. The U.S. now spends far too much money and time focusing on legislation involving capital punishment, allowing jails to become over crowded with too-small crimes such as possession of marijuana, allowing ridiculous amounts of money to be spent on jails and prisoners.