Principles of Criminal Liability - AQA A-level Law (7162)

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key concepts, legal tests, and landmark cases regarding the principles of criminal liability for AQA A-level Law (7162).

Standard of proof in criminal trials

The requirement that the prosecution prove the offence's elements such that the tribunal is sure of guilt (often described as beyond reasonable doubt), without a general burden on the defendant to prove innocence.

Actus reus

The external elements of an offence, which depending on the offence may include conduct, circumstances, and a consequence.

Voluntary conduct

The general principle in criminal law that conduct must be controlled by the defendant rather than being an involuntary movement or reflex (as discussed in Hill v Baxter (1958)).

Conduct offence

An offence that is complete when the prohibited conduct and circumstances are proved, without requiring proof of any further result or consequence (such as theft under s.1 Theft Act 1968).

Result (consequence) offence

An offence that requires proof of a specified outcome and causation linking the defendant's conduct to that outcome.

State-of-affairs offence

An offence framed around being in a prohibited situation rather than carrying out a particular positive act, historically illustrated by Winzar v Chief Constable of Kent (1983).

Omission

A failure to act, which generally incurs no criminal liability unless the defendant owes a recognised legal duty to act.

Duty from creating a dangerous situation

A legal duty recognised in R v Miller [1983] requiring a defendant who creates a dangerous situation to take reasonable steps to address it.

Factual causation

The 'but for' test establishing whether the consequence would have happened when and as it did but for the defendant's conduct (illustrated by R v White (1910) and R v Pagett (1983)).

Legal causation

The requirement that the defendant's conduct must be an operating and substantial cause of the result, meaning more than negligible or minimal (as established in R v Smith (1959) and R v Kimsey (1996)).

Novus actus interveniens

An intervening act or later event that breaks the chain of causation if it is sufficiently independent and prevents the defendant's conduct from remaining an operating and substantial cause.

Medical treatment as an intervening act

Medical care that breaks the chain of causation only when it is palpably wrong (R v Jordan (1956)) or so independent and potent that the original injury becomes insignificant (R v Cheshire [1991]).

Victim's response test

The rule from R v Roberts (1971) stating that a victim's response does not break the chain of causation if it falls within the range of responses that might be expected in the circumstances.

Thin-skull rule

The principle from R v Blaue (1975) that a defendant must take the victim as found, meaning an unusual physical vulnerability or religious belief does not break the chain of causation.

Mens rea

The fault element required by a particular offence, commonly consisting of intention or subjective recklessness.

Direct intention

A decision to bring about a prohibited consequence, so far as it lies within the defendant's power, whether or not the defendant desires that consequence as an ultimate purpose (R v Mohan [1976] QB 1).

Oblique (indirect) intention

Under R v Woollin (1998), a basis allowing the jury to find intention if death or serious bodily harm was a virtual certainty from D's act (barring unforeseen intervention) and D appreciated that it was virtually certain.

Subjective recklessness

A fault requirement under R v Cunningham (1957) and R v G and R [2003] UKHL 50 where the defendant actually realizes a risk exists and, in the circumstances known to them, takes that risk unreasonably.

Transferred malice

The doctrine allowing a defendant's mens rea to transfer to an unintended victim if the offence committed is of the same type (R v Latimer (1886)), but not across different types of offences (R v Pembliton (1874)).

Continuing act approach

A principle from Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1969] 1 QB 439 where an actus reus that continues over time satisfies coincidence if the defendant forms the required mens rea while the act is ongoing.

Single transaction approach

A coincidence doctrine from Thabo Meli v R [1954] 1 WLR 228 and R v Church (1965) that treats a planned sequence or series of acts unfolding over time as one combined transaction.

Strict liability

An offence that does not require proof of mens rea for at least one material element, though it still requires proof of actus reus (e.g., Callow v Tillstone (1900)).