Question

1. By definition, a criminal action requires actus reus, mens rea, and concurrence to occur. Define and gives examples of these three actions.

2. Procedural defenses make the claim that the defendant was in some manner discriminated against in the justice process or that some important aspect of the official procedure was not properly followed. List and define four of these defenses while commenting on their good and bad points.

Answer 1

In general, crimes are broken down into elements that the prosecutor must prove to convict someone of a crime. Statutory elements are those needed elements expressed in the written law. In addition, there are general elements of every crime that are external to the written law but are just as necessary to prove. They are:

• Actus reus : the voluntary act that is at the core of a crime
  
• Mens reas: the evil state of mind of the person committing the guilty act
  
• Concurrence: the guilty act and the guilty mind need to be in concert for a crime to have been committed

Actus Reus

A long-held legal axiom is that for a crime to occur, there has to be an act. Otherwise, we'd all be guilty of some evil thought at some time. Status crimes are crimes for existing in a certain condition, like being a drug addict). Status crimes are not criminal in nature, and because of that, to act would be unconstitutional. So what is an act? Conventionally it is ''something done,'' whether voluntary or involuntary. To be a crime, an act is something done by a person voluntarily. Actus reus then is something done by a person, voluntarily, that's prohibited or unlawful. For example, shooting another person in the head is an unlawful act.

Mens rea

In most systems of justice, a person is not convicted of a crime unless they intended to break the law. The exceptions being strict liability laws such as littering and traffic laws for which intent is irrelevant. For more serious crimes, some intent to do something unlawful is required, referred to as mens rea. This is to avoid putting someone in jail for an unintended act. For example, Swinger Sam is swinging his bat while practicing his swing. Dim Donny sneaks up behind as a joke and get smacked in the head and dies. We wouldn't put Swinger Sam in prison for murder because he had no intent to hurt Dim Donny.

In jurisprudence, procedural defenses are forms of defense challenging the legitimacy of the legal proceeding. A party argues that it should not be held liable for a legal charge or claim brought against them by some legal process, because it has been found such a process is illegitimate. Procedural defenses are built into legal systems as incentives for systems to follow their own rules. In common law jurisdictions the term has applications in both criminal law and civil law. Procedural defenses do not settle questions of guilt or innocence in a criminal proceeding, and are independent of substantive findings for or against a plaintiff or defendant in a civil proceeding. As examples: Defendants might claim there is something about the method of bringing them to be judged, that is unable to result in justice done to someone in their situation. They might claim the process is incompatible with the goals of the justice system.