Criminal Law – Defining Intention

Criminal Law – Defining Intention

The ordinary meaning of intention so far is used in the majority of cases. The judges need not to define intention and the jury should use their common sense in determining its meaning. However, in ?rare? and ?exceptional? cases, the judge should have to give further explanation to the jury on intention to avoid misunderstanding. The jurors are entitled to find intention if a result was virtually certain and the defendant realized it was virtually certain to occur.

Check your essay before you submit. See exactly what your professor sees.

See your AI and plagiarism results before your instructor does.Get the exact same report your professor uses. Trusted by 50,000+ students worldwide.

Get Plagiarism Report Humanize My Essay

In normal language, intention means to intend to do something tends to suggest wanting to do something. It can be defined as a direct intent.

Direct intent shows that the defendant acts with the aim of purpose to result the consequence that he finally wants. For example, A stabbed B because A wanted to kill B. This intention can be obviously seen.

Therefore, House of Lords made it clear that the legal meaning of ?intention? is the ordinary meaning of the word.[7] But, the legal meaning of ?intention? basically has the wider definition. Another not-obvious legal meaning of ?intention? is to intend to do something without wanting to do it or having it as part of your reason to do it.

It means the consequence is not your main purpose or aim. …

Lord Bridge asked the juries to consider that if the defendant foresaw the consequence as natural consequence of his act, then they may infer that he intended it.

Lord Bridge believed that the suggestion of ?natural consequence? conveyed the concept of virtual certainty, but the guidelines were still unclear. What he seemed to have meant is that a result will occur ?unless something unexpected supervened to prevent it.

I think it is uncertain that ?natural consequence? should be relevant to the defendant?s mens rea. The problem in Moloney is the defendant did not foresee the risk of death or grievious bodily harm at all, as he said that he never conceived that what he was doing might cause injury to anybody.

Therefore, anything said about foresight of natural consequence was not binding. In this case, the juries have to find out how were the circumstances when the incident happened.

The question was what was in the defendant?s mind when he pulled the trigger.

If he knew that the gun was pointing at the stepfather?s head, the defendant intended to kill