Sense of Justice and Criminal Responsibility (From Mental Disorder and Criminal Responsibility, P 33-61, 1981, by Stephen J Hucker, et al - See NCJ-89302)

• NCJ Number: 89304
• Author(s): B M Dickens
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 29 pages
• Sale Source: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Language: English
• Country: Canada

Annotation

The assessment of legal culpability based upon the degree of criminal responsibility will be influenced by the psychiatric, social, and moral concepts of responsibility prevalent in a society at a given time.

Abstract

Although criminal responsibility or mens rea must be established for an adult to be found guilty of certain crimes, certain law violations deemphasize or preclude criminal responsibility as a factor in guilt, because of the need to deter such behavior or the difficulty imposed upon gaining convictions for offenses whose punitive consequences are not significant. Law violations that do not include an element of mens rea are traffic violations and certain regulatory violations that usually involve fines. In such circumstances, it is considered that the accused has the responsibility of avoiding committing the act, and when that responsibility is not fulfilled and the commission of the act can be established, then guilt is determined. Such offenses involve absolute liability. Strict liability offenses do not require the prosecutor to establish mens rea, but the defendant may be found innocent under a strong defense that shows conscientious efforts to avoid the offense. Related to the judicial development of absolute and strict liability is criminal liability of corporate bodies. Two lines of approach have been pursued to make companies liable in crime, namely vicarious liability for the acts of company employees and direct liability for acts imputed to the incorporated body itself. Criminal responsibility has also been diluted in the case of juveniles, where persons under seven cannot be considered criminally responsible, and where persons aged 7 and up through the age of 14 can only be held criminally responsible when the prosecutor establishes mens rea beyond a reasonable doubt. These variations in standards for the finding of guilt based on criminal responsibility are influenced by the various psychiatric, social, or moral perspectives prevalent in a society and more particularly in the deliberative agent determining guilt.