Midterm Review

Question 1

What is Actus Reus

Answer 1

The Acts Reus is compromised of prohibited (voluntarily) conduct that occurs in certain circumstances resulting in harmful consequences

Question 2

The Three C’s for Actus Reus

Answer 2

Conduct - Direct or Indirect application of force

Circumstances - Without the person’s consent

Consequences - Sustained actual bodily harm (it is not just physical but also mental)

Question 3

AR for s.215 (Failure to provide the necessities of life)

Answer 3

Conduct - Failing to provide the necessities of life (omission)

Circumstances - Relationship of dependence (parent, partner, caregiver)

Consequences - The conduct causes or is likely to cause the health of the dependent to be endangered permanently

Question 4

What is the Harbottle Test

Answer 4

The accused’s conduct must constitute a “substantial and integral cause”

This applies in cases of first-degree murder

Question 5

What is the Smithers Test

Answer 5

The accused’s conduct must constitute a “contributing cause outside the de minimis range

Test for causation in all criminal charges involving homicide. Superseded by Nette

Question 6

What is the Nette Test

Answer 6

The accused’s conduct must constitute a “significant contributing cause”

Test for causation in all criminal charges involving homicide

Question 7

What is Factual Causation

Answer 7

But for the actions of the accused, the son would still be alive

Question 8

What is Legal Causation

Answer 8

Was the death of the son reasonably foreseeable?

Question 9

Mens Rea three C’s

Answer 9

Conduct: Acts intentionally

Circumstances: Aware of the victim’s lack of consent

Consequences: Awareness of potential consequences

Question 10

What is Mens Rea

Answer 10

A guilty mind also known as the fault element.

All mental elements (except voluntariness) meaning your actions need to be part of your will

Question 11

What is Subjective MR

Answer 11

The accused must

deliberately intent - Bring about the consequences

and

subjectively realize - Being aware if the possibility

Question 12

What are the objectives of MR

Answer 12

What any reasonable person would know

Someone who thinks they are a really good driving thinks they can drive fast in the winter, so subjectively they dont think they are putting anyone at risk but objectively they are

Question 13

What is Intention

Answer 13

1 - Conscious prupose

2 - forces the consequences that are likely to result and acts in that manner anyways

(go to swing your fist but your doing it to get him out of the way, or as a joke, if you foresee how likely it is your going to assault him it can still be seen as intention)

Question 14

What is wilful blindness

Answer 14

You are wilfully blind to the truth

You have enough information to know what is going on

Wilful blindness can substitute for knowledge

Question 15

What is Recklessness

Answer 15

Knowledge of danger or risk, and then proceeding with a course of conduct which created a risk that prohibited results will occur

Question 16

What is marked departure

Answer 16

The accused person conduct fell far below the conduct expected of a reasonable person in those consequences

Question 17

Thin Skull Rules

Answer 17

The thin skull rule stands for the principle that a party at fault in causing an accident and an injury cannot avoid responsibility for paying compensation simply because a pre-existing medical condition makes the victim more susceptible than others to being injured.

Question 18

Inchoate Offences

Answer 18

Crimes are unique class of criminal offences int he sense that they criminalize acts that precede harmful conduct but do not necessarily inflict harmful consequences ina nd of themselves

Question 19

Counselling offence that is not committed

Answer 19

Everyone who counsels another person to commit an indictable offence, is if the offence is not committed, guilty of an indictable offence and liable to the same punishment to which a person who attempts to commit that offence is liable

Everyone who coucnels another person to commit an offence punishable on summary conviction is if the offence is not committed, guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction

Question 20

Conspiracy

Answer 20

A conspiracy consists not merely in the intention of two or more, but in the agreement of two or more to do an unlawful act or do an lawful acr unlawful means

AR: The agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime

MR: Intention to agree AND intention to carry out the agreement

Question 21

What are the Defences

Answer 21

Mistake

Automatism and NCRMD

Provocation and Intoxication

Necessity and Self-Defence

Question 22

What is a Mistake of Fact?

Answer 22

Subjective MR:
- The accused made an honest mistake
- Did the accused choose to engage in criminal behaviour

Objective MR:
- Was the accused’s mistake reasonable

While subjective MR does not require a reasonableness test, if a mistake is unreasonable this undermines the credibility

Question 23

What is NCRMD

Answer 23

Those who commit criminal acts because of mental illness. At the time of the offence, the accused was experiencing a mental disorder

Usually, the accused will have to have a disorder that manifests as psychotic symptoms

Question 24

What is Automatism

Answer 24

A state of impaired consciousness… in which an individual, though capable of action, has no voluntary control over that action

Severely colluded consciousness that prevents the accused from acting voluntarily

Question 25

What are the categories of automatism?

Answer 25

1. Caused by “normal” conditions such as sleeping walking or hypnosis
2. Triggered by an external trauma, such as a blow to the head
3. Involuntarily induced by alcohol or drugs (Non-insane automatism)
4. Voluntarily self-induced by alcohol or drugs (Intoxication)
5. Caused by a “disease of the mind” (NCRMD)

Question 26

What is Provocation?

Answer 26

“You’re so stupid”

The heat of passion caused by sudden provocation

On the sudden and before there was time for his passion to cool

This only applies in cases of murder > reduced charge to manslaughter

Question 27

What are the levels of intoxication?

Answer 27

Mild Intoxication
- Never a defence

Advanced Intoxxicationo
- Accused lacks foresight to understand the consequences of their actions
- Defence for specific intent offence

Extreme Intoxication
- Similar to automatism. Intoxication that means the accused it not acting voluntarily, and can be used as a defence to general intent offences

Question 28

What is Necessity

Answer 28

An excuse when the accused can only avoid calamity or disaster by breaking the law

Ex. Speeding to the hospital

Justification > Under the circumstances, was the action really wrong

Excuse > The action was wrong, but the wrongness of the act should not be attributed to the actor

Question 29

What is Self-Defence

Answer 29

A person is not guilty of an offence if

they belive on reasonable grounds that force is being used against them or another or that a threat of force is being made against them or another person

The act that constitutes the offence is committed for the purpose of defending or protecting themselves or the other person from that use or threat or force

The act committed is reasonable in the circumstances