MENS REASHIRA

MIMI

RICH

WHAT IS MENS REA?

• Carries out the meaning “the guilty mind”.

• Mens rea is proven based on the accused’s act.

• In the Penal Code, several words are used to constitute the element mens rea:

• (a) Intention

• (b) Knowingly/Knowledge

• (c) Rashness/Reckless

• (d)Negligently

• (e) Fraudently

• (f) Dishonestly

• (g) Maliciously

ELEMENTS TO BE FULFILLED

For the task given, we have decided to choose:

INTENTION

: In order to prove the existence of the element of mens rea the intention of the accused must be established.

MENS REA: INTENTION

• There are several sections in the Penal Code which use the word ‘intention’ or ‘with the intention’ which constitute the element mens rea.

• In Penal Code, there is no specific definition of mens rea.

• Thus, we may refer to the COMMON LAW cases at the first instance.

DECIDED CASES

1. Hyam v Director of Public Prosecutor [1975] AC 55

2. PP v Tan Buck Tee [1961] MLJ 176

3. PP v Sameer Klom Klom [1996] 2 CLJ 359

HYAM V DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

• The Defendant set fire to a house by pouring about half a gallon of gasoline through a letter box of the house and lighting it on fire. Four people were asleep in the house.

• Two made it out, two young girls died in the fire. The jury was instructed that the intent to do grievous bodily harm was sufficient to convict for murder.

• The Defendant was convicted of two counts of murder.

• The Defendant appealed, arguing that he did not foresee the deaths of the individuals and the crime of murder required an intent to endanger an individual’s life, not just an intent to do grievous bodily harm.

JUDGMENT & PRINCIPLES

• Has the ‘intention’ to cause grievous bodily harm for a conviction of murder been modified by English case law to include a requirement that the Defendant must intend to endanger the victim’s life?

• House of Lords decided that for an intention of committing a murder to be established, it must involve the act and the result of his act.

PP V SAMEER KLOM KLOM

• The defendant was charged with the murder of a girl under s. 300 of Penal Code.

• The defendant alleged that the deceased, who was his lover, had provoked him into stabbing her by rejecting him and telling him that she would rather die than go back to him.

Judgment and principles of the case

• The court found that when the defendant stabbed the deceased 25 times, he intended to cause bodily injury to the latter, and this was sufficient in the ordinary cause of nature, to cause death.

• The wounds inflicted on the deceased were the cause of her death.

PP V TAN BUCK TEE

• The victim had been stabbed five times by violent blows with a heavy sharp instrument like an axe

• Such act penetrated to his heart and liver.

• Those blows must have intended to kill the person on whom they were inflicted.

• In certain cases of homicide the evidence may be such that it becomes necessary to consider with very great care whether or not the intention with which the act was done, does or does not come within the definitions of criminal intention set out in sections 299 and 300 of the Penal Code.

OTHER SITUATION

PENAL CODE

S. 300(c) provides that :

“If it is done with the intention of causing bodily injury to any person, and the bodily injury intended to be inflicted is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death”

APPLICATION

• Mens rea can be proven based on how the victim was murdered.

• In the given situation: the body of Elizabeth Short had been cut in half.

the intestines were tucked neatly under the buttocks.

There was three-inch slashed from each corner of her mouth.

There were rope marks on her wrists and ankles.

• From the above facts given, it can be indicated the person who committed such acts had the intention of killing Elizabeth Short.

• As the victim’s body was seriously injured and tortured, it was sufficient to say that such injuries inflicted to the victims would amount to cause death.

• Thus, it falls under section 300(c) of Penal Code.