Posted: August 26th, 2022

Elements of a Criminal Act

Elements of a Criminal Act
For a criminal act to be used against a defendant there is a need for adequate proof to show the need and culpability of prosecution. Individuals that engage in offenses are evaluated and judged according to the criminal justice rules. This paper elaborates on the basic elements of a criminal act. With reference to the criminal case of Patrice’s scenario, there is the identification of the ethical and moral concerns involved.
For a misdeed to be termed as a crime, it has to comprise an act that is punishable by law (Lippman, 2009). In order to identify with criminal law, one has to understand the basic components of a criminal act, crime, impossibility, and ethical concerns associated with it. A criminal act is an illegitimate bodily movement such as Patrice aiming her riffle to Kayla so that she could shoot her to death. It constitutes of several elements which include omission, possession, and status of the person. An omission is when an individual fails to act and their decision results in the occurrence of a crime. Possession of crime objects such as the gun that Patrice held is deemed as a criminal act (Carlan, Nored& Downey, 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). Whether the possession was constructive or actual, the individual is, however, prosecuted. Status defines who the defendant is, and it can be used to declare a criminal act. Nevertheless, the trial of such action is perceived to be beyond the individual’s control.
A crime is made up of two main elements; a criminal act which is also referred to as actus reus and a criminal intent also called mens rea. Actus reus is the implementation of an action, done by a human being in the right state of mind, which causes harm. Men’s rea is the intention to initiate the action with a motive of harming or injuring the other person (Marchuk, 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). For an act to be declared a crime, there must be a concurrence of a criminal act and intent. For instance, Patrice commissioned the action of shooting with a plan of killing Kayla. Although she mistakenly shot Angela, the purpose of her action was to cause death.
In criminal law, impossibility is a policy whereby a person can be released from an agreement due to unexpected conditions that make performance under the contract not viable (Aksoy, 2013). In the scenario of Patrice, it could be said that she was not in a position to kill her mother-in-law since her rifle malfunctioned. Nonetheless, this was not complete with dismissing the murder charges against her since she had already executed Angela, which proves that she intended to kill. She also possessed the gun, which was a crime weapon and could be used as additional evidence.
Allowing legal impossibility defense hinders the petitioner from attaining justice. This practice has raised concerns on the ethics of the attorneys and the judges in the courts (Lippman, 2009). All of them take an oath, to be honest, and tell the truth, but this is not portrayed when there is impossibility defense since it diverts the case from the fact. Although the attorneys work in the diligence of defending and accomplishing the goals of their clients, they should uphold integrity so that the right judgment achieved.
To conclude, the justice system is obliged to put into effect all the laws of the country. The judges are required to carefully analyze the wrongdoings in order to distinguish between crimes and common offenses. A misdeed becomes a crime when it consists of a criminal act and intent. An illegal act can be classified as omission, possession, or involuntary. Introduction of impossibility as a form of defense encourages injustice and diversion from the real incidence.

References
Aksoy, H. C. (2013). 2) Treatment of Impossibility in German Law. Impossibility in Modern Private Law, 7-60. Doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-01704-4_2
Carlan, P., Nored, L. S., & Downey, R. A. (2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). A Brief Introduction to Criminal Law. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Lippman, M. (2009).Contemporary criminal law: Concepts, cases, and controversies. Sage.
Marchuk, I. (2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). The Fundamental Concept of Crime in International Criminal Law. Springer, 1-304. Doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-28246-1

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