CRIM 2260

Mens rea is all the mental elements involved in a criminal act not including voluntariness 

There are four basic forms of mens rea:  Knowledge  Recklessness  Intention  Wilful Blindness  Crown may also need to prove some special element that is required by definition of the particular offence in question 

The C.C.C may require the proof of mens rea in the form of an "intended" consequence or actual "knowledge" of particular circumstances  Criminal code employs other terms to indicate requirement of intent  

Ensures that those whom are morally blameworthy are convicted; not the morally innocent 

Olan case clearly defined fraud as dishonest deprivation

Meaning of planned and deliberate S. 231(2)Not only intended to kill; but planned as wellNot impulsive

Crown has drawn a clear distincition between first and second degree murder; however, both carry life sentences

Direct intention refers to the idea that an individual is acting with a desire or aim to acheieve a certain consequence

Indirect intention no desire for A to cause B; but B is likely

Intenet and motive NEED be used distinctly NOT interchangably

Intent: Exercise of free-will to use certain means to produce a certain resultMotive: that which precedes and induces the exercise of free-will

Test to prove intention "Reasonable Person" To determine subjective intent:"what would a reasonable person have intended or known in the particular circumstances in which the accused found him/her self"

Subjective Awareness of the consequences can be inferred from the act itself

Transferred intent: takes the mens rea of an offence in relation to an intended victim and transfers it to the actus reus of the same offence committed upon another victim

Intoxication can be used only as a partial defence

Specific intent: X to achieve YMore complex than specific, it has an ulterior goal (i.e. robbery)

General intent: doing X, for Y Type of offenceImmediate endResults flow from actions & unintended consequences from those actions

Recklessness can be used as an alternative to intention or knowledge

People are reckless, with respect to a consequence of their actions, when they foresee that it may occur but do not desire it or foresee it as certain

Recklessness: Criminal responsibility is imposed only if reasonable persons would not have assumed such a risk in the same circumstances 

Wilful blindness: when accused persons are virtually certai that certain partuicular circumstances exist, but deliberately ignore the circumstance (stolen goods)

Culpability on the basis of wilful blindness rests on a finding of deliberate ignorance

Vaillancourt (1987) & Martineau (1990) the S.C.C. struck down certain parts of s. 230(d) -As it had made it possible to convict accused persons of murder even though they did not subjectively foresee the liklihood that their conduct would cause death

s. 229 (i) & (ii) is based on the accused's subjective foresight of the liklihood of death

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