Key Principles of Criminal Law: Culpability and Criminal Capacity

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the essential concepts of culpability, criminal capacity, and related legal defences as presented in the lecture notes.

Culpability

A fundamental requirement for criminal liability involving legally sufficient grounds to blame an accused for their unlawful conduct, encompassing the mental state (mens rea).

Intention (Dolus)

The conscious will to perform an unlawful act with knowledge of its wrongfulness.

Negligence (Culpa)

The failure to exercise reasonable care, leading to unlawful consequences, typically evaluated against an objective standard.

Unlawfulness

An objective standard concerning whether an act violates the law, distinct from the personal blameworthiness of the accused.

Criminal Capacity

The accused's mental ability to be held responsible for a crime, comprised of cognitive and conative abilities.

Cognitive Ability

The mental function enabling an individual to appreciate the wrongfulness of their conduct through perception, reasoning, and comprehension.

Conative Ability

The capacity for self-control and the power of resistance, allowing an individual to act in accordance with their appreciation of right and wrong.

Rumpff Report

The report from which the two psychological legs of the test for criminal capacity (cognitive and conative functions) are primarily derived.

Involuntary Intoxication

Intoxication occurring without the accused's knowledge or consent, which excludes liability because the state was not entered voluntarily.

Actio libera in causa

A principle where liability is maintained if an accused voluntarily induces intoxication specifically to gain courage or facilitate the commission of a crime.

Mental Illness or Intellectual Disability

A pathological disturbance diagnosed by psychiatric evidence that may exclude criminal capacity and liability.

Automatism

Involuntary conduct not caused by mental illness which excludes the act element (actus reus) of a crime.

Non-pathological Criminal Incapacity

A temporary inability to appreciate wrongfulness or control conduct due to non-pathological causes like emotional stress, anger, or provocation.

S v Eadie ($2002$)

A Supreme Court of Appeal case that narrowed the defence of non-pathological incapacity by equating loss of self-control due to provocation with sane automatism.

Diminished Responsibility

A consideration under section $78(7)$ of the Criminal Procedure Act that may impact sentencing when criminal capacity is affected but not entirely excluded.