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Denials of Liability and Defences
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Lecture notes of 50 pages for the course Criminal Law at UoS (.)
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Denials of Liability and DefencesIntroduction
Denials of Offending vs Defences
Denials of offending.
Denying that the requisite actus reus and/or mens rea elements of the crime
charged have been satisfied.
Intoxication.
Automatism.
Insanity.
Defendant doesn’t need to plea the defence.
Can be inculpatory or exculpatory.
Defences.
Defendant must accept that the actus reus and the mens rea requirements of
an offence charged have been satisfied, and therefore an offence has been
complete.
Partial defences.
Charges of murder.
General defences.
Insanity.
Self-defence – justificatory defence.
Duress – excusatory defence.
Necessity.
Defences are there for a defendant to rely on as a form of exculpation.
Denials of Liability – Intoxication
Intoxication
Intoxication by alcohol, drugs, or a combination of both.
Criminal law is faced with a dilemma/clash:
Logical, principled and subjective approach to offending.
Only punish defendants for serious crimes when they have a
particular type of mens rea, e.g. intention, recklessness.
Shouldn’t punish people who don’t have such mens rea.
Policy-led approach.
Protecting society from dangerous individuals from harm caused by
such persons.
Rationale for the Intoxication Rules
, Majewski (1976).
The appellant (M) was convicted following a brawl in a pub in which he
assaulted the landlord and customers and the police officers who arrested
him.
His defence was that he was under the influence of drink and drugs at the
time.
The judge directed the jury that this was an invalid defence.
M appealed on the basis that the judge had misdirected the jury but his
appeal was dismissed.
In the House of Lords, counsel for M argued, inter alia, that guilty intent was
required to be proven by the prosecution and that any evidence of
intoxication is relevant to rebut the inferences which can properly be drawn
from the fact that the accused did the act alleged to amount to an assault.
The Court was required to consider whether a defendant may be
convicted of an assault in circumstances where, by virtue of self-
induced intoxication, he did not intend commit the act alleged to
constitute assault.
Their Lordships drew a distinction between offences of “basic intent”
and “specific intent” and held that in cases of the former, voluntary
intoxication cannot form the basis for a defence even if the
intoxication produces a state of automatism.
This means that a voluntarily intoxicated defendant, such as
M, can be convicted even where the prosecution has not
proven intent.
In reaching this conclusion, their Lordships emphasised the
importance of the criminal law in protecting law-abiding
citizens and the defendant’s guilt in cases such as this is
supplied by the act of self-intoxication with reckless disregard
for the possible consequences.
Lord Elwyn-Jones - ‘If a man of his own volition takes a substance
which causes him to cast off the restraints of reason and conscience,
no wrong is done to him by holding him answerable criminally for any
injury he may do while in that condition. His course of conduct in
reducing himself by drugs or drink to that condition in my view
supplies the evidence of mens rea, of guilty mind certainly sufficient
for crimes of basic intent.
If a defendant has made the choice of becoming intoxicated in
the first place, this is in and of itself blameworthy, and thus
deserve criminal liability.
Criminal law will step in and construct criminal liability by
constructing the defendant’s mens rea for crimes which are
basic intent crimes.
Intoxication – With Mens Rea
, Intoxication?
Does the defendant have the requisite mens rea for the offence?
Yes – defendant is always liable, an intoxicated mens rea is still a
mens rea.
Intoxication becomes irrelevant, the defendant cannot blame his
intoxication for why he committed a crime if he had the requisite
mens rea at the time of the crime.
Sheehan and Moore (1975).
The two appellants, in a drunken state, poured petrol over a man and set
light to him causing his death.
The relevant question was not whether the appellants were capable of
forming the mens rea it was whether they had in fact formed the mens rea -
a drunken intent is still an intent.
The burden of proving mens rea remained on the prosecution.
‘...in cases where drunkenness and its possible effect upon the defendant's
men's rea is an issue, we think that the proper direction to a jury is, first, to
warn them that the mere fact that the defendant's mind was affected by
drink so that he acted in a way in which he would not have done had he been
sober does not assist him at all, provided that the necessary intention was
there. A drunken intent is nevertheless an intent. The jury is to be directed to
have regard to all the evidence, including that relating to drink, to draw such
inferences as they think proper from the evidence, and on that basis to ask
themselves whether they feel sure that at the material time the defendant
had the requisite intent’.
They already had the mens rea to kill or cause GBH, and they simply
got drunk.
The intoxication was irrelevant, they still had the mens rea for
the crime of murder.
A drunken intent is nevertheless an intent.
Kingston (1994).
Barry Kingston was involuntarily drugged by a friend.
While Kingston was intoxicated, his friend encouraged him to perform
sexual acts on a 15-year- old boy.
The incident had been a set up by his friend.
Kingston was convicted of indecent assault.
Kingston’s defence was that if he had not been drugged, he would not
have acted the way he did.
But, Kingston had paedophilic tendencies.
The Court found that although the drugs had essentially done away with
Kingston’s inhibitions, this did not negative the necessary mental element
which was found to be present in Kingston’s conduct.
Further, if an intention arose in circumstances for which Kingston had
no blame, it is still an unlawful intent that does not warrant an
acquittal.
The principle in R v Majewski (1977) was applied in that a crime of specific
intent requires something more than contemplation of the prohibited act and
foresight of the probably consequences.
, If a person becomes so intoxicated that he becomes “legless” and
commits a crime, it is a defence to a crime of specific intent but not
basic intent, as he is still somewhat aware of himself and therefore
liable.
Kingston was found to be aware that his conduct was wrong as he would not
have done it if he was not intoxicated.
Involuntary intoxication in circumstances where Kingston was found
to have possessed the necessary intent needed to commit the crime,
was not enough to negative the mens rea element.
The defendant couldn’t rely on intoxication, even though it
was involuntary – it wasn’t enough to deny liability as he still
had the mens rea of intending to commit indecent assault.
o The intoxication gave him the confidence to commit
the crime, but also lowered his usual ability to resist
temptation.
The appeal was allowed and the conviction was reinstated.
Heard (2007).
The police had been called to the defendant’s house; he had been self-
harming at the time, appearing depressive and emotional, as well as
intoxicated.
After requesting help from the police officers, they took him to
hospital where he became disruptive and loud in the waiting room.
They took him outside where he danced suggestively and took his
penis out and rubbed it on one of the officer’s thigh.
The defendant could not recall the incident.
He was convicted of sexual assault under s3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
The defendant appealed conviction.
The trial judge had stated that he could not rely on his intoxication as a
defence to the offence.
The issue in the appeal concerned whether the trial judge had erred in
this statement that sexual assault was an offence of basic intent.
Court of Appeal upheld the conviction and affirmed that sexual assault was a
basic intent offence.
It can only be committed by intention to touch and the trial judge was
correct, in his statement that voluntary intoxication is not an excuse
or defence to sexual assault.
Although the defendant may have not acted this way when sober or
not remember doing so, this did not ‘destroy the intentional character
of his touching’.
It was stated that ‘crimes of specific intent are those where the
offence requires a proof of purpose or consequence’ [31] and this
would include offences of rape, assault by penetration and sexual
assault.
Voluntary intoxication would not negate this intention.
Intoxication – No Mens Rea
Intoxication?
Does the defendant have the requisite mens rea for the offence?
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