LondonJohn
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- May 12, 2010
- Messages
- 21,464
Well...... firstly, I was dealing with general principles of modern jurisprudence, rather than specific individual justice systems, so I wasn't trying to present things from a UK (or an other country) perspective.
And secondly, you're right about the overlap with actus reus - but in modern interpretations there is an increasing blurring of the lines when one is considering the same basic act and its various interpretations. Take the example of one man shooting another man dead with a handgun. The basic act is the same (A points gun at B, A fires gun, B falls down dead), but the type of crime (or non-crime) can change dramatically. And the actus reus of each of the various criminal offences (and non-offences) is to a very large extend intertwined with (and co-dependent upon) the mens rea in each instance.
So, if A aimed and fired the weapon with the intent to seriously wound or kill, then the crime is murder. If A accidentally discharged the weapon while cleaning it, and the weapon happened to be pointing at B at that moment, then the crime is likely manslaughter. If A was being mortally threatened by B at the time, then likely no crime has been committed. If A shoots B as an enemy combatant in the course of a recognised conflict between nation states, then again no crime has been committed.
In each of these different scenarios, the mens rea of the offence (or non-offence) is different. And modern jurisprudence would hold that possible factors of justification (e.g. lawful self-defence, sufficiently serious duress, etc) actually do fall under the broad remit of mens rea. This is because these factors are instrumental in the mental processes of the defendant at the point of the act. If someone believes that the only way to protect his life is to kill another person who is attacking him with lethal weapons (and the court accepts that such a belief was reasonable), then under this broader definition of terms he cannot hold the "guilty mind" (= mens rea) that is required to prove murder - despite clearly having the intent to shoot the other person with the intent of killing or seriously wounding him.
I fully realise that under the current partition of terms within UK common law, the notion of mens rea still has a more narrow definition which is not far removed from "intent" (or "negligence"), and that justification is dealt with as a separate issue related to the actus reus. However, the broader definition of mens rea is increasingly common in general theoretic jurisprudence. And let's not forget that the end result is the same in both instances: a UK court will say that justification of self-defence means that the crime of murder never occurred, and that therefore the defendant should be acquitted. Theoretical jurisprudence will say that demonstration of self-defence means that the defendant did not have the broader mens rea for murder, and that therefore the defendant should be acquitted.
Anyhow, I have bored many people - including you and even myself - with my many and lengthy contributions on this narrow area of debate. The slight irony is that I think we are in broad agreement on the two aspects of this issue which have direct relevance to this case: that it appears that Knox could still (in principle) have committed the criminal slander without holding a certainty of Lumumba's innocence; and that Knox did not have the requisite mens rea for the criminal slander, and should therefore be acquitted on this charge.
For me, at least, I'm happy to move on now - I think you corrected me on a few points, for which I am grateful. But I don't want to get bogged down in it any further.....
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